Mr.  Watson's  Editorials 
'  On  the  War  Issues 


UC: 


(REPRINTED  FROM  THE  JEFFERSONIAN) 


Press  of 

THE  JEFFERSONIAN  PUB.  CO. 

THOMSON,  GA, 

1917 


Mr.  Watson's  Editorials 
On  the  War  Issues 


(Reprinted  from  TRe  Jeffersonian) 


COMMON  SENSE  COMMENTS  ON  THE 
GREAT  WAR 

In  order  that  you  may  have  in  your  mind  a  picture  of  the 
kattle-field  in  Northern  France,  where  four  millions  of  Chris- 
tians, (supplied  with  Bibles,  chaplains,  and  regular  prayers, 
on  each  side)  are  murdering  one  another,  according  to  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  "proud  punctilio,"  I  will  ask  you  to  reflect  upon 
a  few  of  the  actual  facts. 

First  of  all,  you  must  realize  that  the  length  of  the  battle- 
line  is  only  about  50  miles,  and  its  width  less  than  ten. 

Try  to  imagine  the  crowding  of  that  small  territory  by 
four  million  men,  tens  of  thousands  of  horses;  millions  of 
cannon,  motor  cars,  trucks,  wagons,  piles  of  ammunition,  food 
depots,  sleeping  quarters,  field-hospitals,  &c. 

Imagine  the  vast  net-work  of  trenches,  in  which  the  men 
on  duty  at  the  front  have  to  live,  sleep,  and  fight. 

Imagine  a  deafening  roar  of  cannon-thunder,  lasting  all 
night  and  all  day,  every  day  in  the  week,  every  week  in  the 
month. 

Imagine  tens  of  thousands  of  soldiers  making  charges, 
every  few  hours,  on  several  parts  of  this  short  battle-line ;  and 
imagine  those  soldiers  falling,  under  the  terrible  fire  of  can- 
non, machine-guns,  rifles,  and  hand-grenades. 

Imagine  at  least  one  hundred  thousand  of  these  soldiers 
killed  along  that  short  line,  every  month;  and  twice  as  many 
wounded. 

The  wounded,  of  course,  are  carried  to  the  rear,  sent  to 
hospitals,  and  treated  perhaps  with  every  possible  considera- 
tion. 

But  what  about  the  dead? 

There  is  no  place  to  hury  them,  and  no  time  for  it. 

(3) 


589145 


All  the  ground  is  cut  up  into  trenches:  there  is  no  room 
for  burial  on  separate  soil. 

What,  then,  becomes  a  dreadful  military  necessity? 

The  corpses  must  he  filed  up,  like  so  many  cords  of  wood, 
soaked dn  kerosene  oil,  and  burnt  to  ash.es. 


In  the  Augusta  Herald,  of  last  Sunday,  appears  the  fol- 

v'mg, 
burned : 


lowing,  which  shows  that  some  of  the  heroic  soldiers  are  not 


Germany  is  making  soap,  oils,  fertilizer  and  pig-feed  out  of  slain 
soldiers'   bodies. 

Reports  of  rendering  plants  for  human  flesh  have  been  pub- 
lished before,  but  nev/spapers  from  Germany  and  Holland,  just  re- 
ceived, contain  details  of  this  horrible  industry  never  told  in 
America. 

From  Belgians  who  have  been  deported  into  Germany  to  work, 
and  who  have  escaped,  the  newspaper  "La  Belgique,"  published  in 
Loyden,  Holland,  obtains  details,  which  are  included  in  the  follow- 
ing article: 

"We  have  known  for  long  that  the  Germans  stripped  their  dead 
behind  the  firing  line,  fastened  them  into  bundles  of  three  or  four 
bodies  with  iron  wire,  and  then  dispatched  these  grisly  bundles  to 
the  rear. 

"Until  recently  the  trains  laden  with  the  dead  were  sent  to 
Seraing,  near  Liege,  and  a  point  ncrth  of  Brussels,  where  were 
refuse  consumers. 

"German  science  is  responsible  for  the  ghoulish  idea  of  the  for- 
mation of  the  German  Offal-Conversion  Company,  Ltd.  ('D.  A.  V. 
G.')  or  'Deutsche  Abfall-Gerwertung  Gasellschaft'),  a  dividend- 
earning  company  with  a  capital  of  $1,250,000,  the  chief  factory  of 
v/hich  has  been  constructed  1,000  yards  from  the  railway  connect- 
ing St.  Vith,  near  the  Belgian  frontier,  with  Gerolstein,  in  the 
lonely,  little-frequented  Eifel  district,  southwest  of  Coblcntz. 

"The  factory  deals  specially  with  the  dead  from  the  west  front. 
If  the  results  are  as  good  as  the  company  hopes,  another  will  be 
established  to  deal  with  corpses  on  the  east  front. 

"The  trains  arrive  full  of  bare  bodies,  which  are  unloaded  by 
the  workers,  who  live  at  the  works. 

"The  men  wear  oilskin  overalls  and  masks  with  mica  eyepieces. 
They  are  equipped  with  long  hooked  poles  and  push  the  bundles  of 
bodies  to  aii  endless  chain  which  picks  them  up  with  big  hooks, 
attached  at  intervals  of  two  feet. 

"The  bodies  are  transportea  on  this  endless  chain  into  a  long, 
narrow  compartment,  where  they  pass  through  a  scalding  bath 
which  disinfects  them.  They  then  go  through  a  drying  chamber  and 
finally  are  automatically  carried  into  a  digester  or  great  cauldron, 
in  which  they  are  dropped  by  an  apparatus  which  detaches  them 
from  the  chain. 

In  the  digecter  thoy  remain  from  six  to  eight  hours,  and  are 
treated  by  steam,  which  breaks  them  up,  while  they  are  slowly 
stirred  by  machineiy.  The  bones  sink  to  the  bottom,  leaving  a 
thick,  dark-colored   liquid. 


Southern  Pamphlets 

Rare  Book  Collecti6n 

UNC-Chape]  JJ^'^ 


5 

"From  this  treatment  result  several  products.  The  fats  are 
broken  up  into  stearlno,  a  form  of  tallow,  and  oils,  which  require 
to  be  re-distilled  before  they  can  be  used.  The  process  of  distilla- 
tion is  carried  out  by  boiling  the  oil  with  carbonate  of  soda,  and 
some  part  of  the  by-products  resulting  from  this  is  used  by  German 
soap  makers.'' 

Not  from  neutral  Holland,  but  from  a  great  newspaper  printed 
in  Germany  itself — the  Berlin  Lckalanzeiger — come  otill  more  start- 
ling details  of  the  uses  made  of  extracts  from  human  flesh. 

Karl  Rosner,  special  Lokalanzeiger  correspondent  with  the 
armies  on  the  western  front,  states  there  is,  north  of  Rheims,  a 
German  factory  for  "converting  corpses"  into  lubricating  oils,  fer- 
tilizers and  fodder  for  pigs. 

The  fertilizers  are  obtained  from  the  refuse  and  bones,  ground 
together. 

The  foregoing  reads  like  a  description  of  a  Chicago  pack- 
ing-house, where  hogs  are  handled  by  machinery;  and  vs^here 
if  a  workman  happens  to  fall  into  the  boiling  vats,  he  is  made 
up  into  lard,  or  sausage,  along  with  the  other  stulf. 

It  is  certainly  a  grewsome  thought,  that  our  gallant  young 
men,  conscripted  to  fight  the  Germans,  may  be  made  into  soap, 
oil,  fertilizer,  and  hog-feed. 

The  German  troops  cannot  help  themselves.  For  30  years 
they  have  been  ruthlessly  drilled  into  blind  obedience:  their 
Kaiser  and  their  "nobly-born"  officers  have  so  persistently 
treated  them  as  if  they  were  senseless  automatons,  that  they 
are  senseless  automatons.    Their  military  system  made  them  so. 

They  do  not  dare  to  protest,*when  they  are  ordered  to  feed 
the  cannon  and  the  machine  guns  with  more  human  fodder: 
they  dumbly  go,  and  they  bravely  die.    For  what? 

They  do  not  know,  and  dare  not  inquire. 

The  English  troops  are  volunteers:  they  had  been  made  to 
believe — perhaps  correctly — that  German  success  against 
France  would  mean  the  ruin  of  England. 

At  any  rate,  they  are  at  the  battle-line  voluntarily,  and 
they  can  tell  you  why  they  volunteered. 

The  Frenchmen,  standing  on  their  own  soil,  know  why  they 
are  fighting.  They  are  prompted  by  the  noblest  patriotism 
that  ever  inspires  soldiers — the  same  that  nerved  the  heroes 
of  Marathon,  of  Bannockburn,  of  King's  Mountain,  of  York- 
town,  of  Manassas,  and  of  Gettysburg. 

They  are  heating  hack  the  invaders  of  their  homes. 

When  men  fight  on  that  principle,  the  foundation  is  gran- 
ite, the  cause  is  holy,  and  the  sacrifice  immortal. 

So  much  for  the  armies  engaged. 


0 

But  what  about  an  American  army  going  over? 

What  about  burning  a  few  thousand  cords  of  dead  Amer- 
icans ? 

What  about  a  carload  of  German  soap,  made  out  of  our 
boys?  What  about  manuring  German  fields  with  our  bravest 
youth,  and  fattening  German  hogs  on  the  choicest  selection 
from  American  manhood? 

"I  raised  my  boy  to  be  a  soldier!"  says  the  song;  but  did 
mother  raise  him  to  be  pig-feed? 

Was  it  for  service  in  Europe,  that  American  parents  reared 
their  sons,  paid  for  their  education,  and  prepared  them  for 
life? 

Is  the  end  of  all  their  parental  love,  care,  and  ambition  to 
be,  a  ghastly  contribution  to  a  pile  of  corpses  in  France,  soaked 
in  kerosene,  and  fired  like  a  stack  of  wood? 

Is  there  somewhere,  in  the  soul  of  things^  an  imperative  de- 
mand for  a  supreme  American  sacrifice,  admonishing  us  to 
acquiesce,  humbly  and  unquestioningly,  when  autocratic  au- 
thority violates  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States^  and 
orders  the  flower  of  young  American  manhood  to  cut  loose 
from  home,  loved  ones,  and  country,  and  to  cheerfully  take 
the  road  which  leads  to  the  horrible  factories  where  dead  sol- 
diers are  converted  into  oil  for  machiRery  and  food  for  hogs? 

What  got  us  into  the  War? 

I  thought  we  Democrats  re-elected  Professor  Wilson,  to 
keep  u^  out. 

Isn't  that  your  understanding? 

It  hurts  my  feelings  to  hear  a  man-r-who  voted  for  Wil- 
son because  "he  kept  us  out  of  war" — now  say,  "he  kept  us  out, 
as  long  as  he  couldy 

Didn't  Germany  do  her  worst,  before  the  November  elec- 
tion? 

She  certainly  did. 

What  has  she  done,  since? 

As  soon  as  Wilson  had  "kissed  the  Book,"  at  his  second 
inauguration,  he  drew  his  sword  on  the  Kaiser. 

What  for? 

I'd  love  to  see  somebody  run  a  sword  clean  through  the 
Kaiser;  but  this  feeling  was  strongest  just  after  he  murdered 
the  non-combatant  tourists  on  the  passenger  ship  Lusitania. 

He  has  never  done  anythin,  since,  half  so  atrocious  as  that, 
and  he  never  can  do  anything  worse. 

If  President  Wilson  didn't  hit  him  then,  why  hit  him  nowf 

Why  was  it  all  postponed  imtil  after  the  election? 

Why  make  war  on  account  of  crimes  that  we  condoned? 


It  was  after  the  German  crimes  of  1914  and  1915,  that 
Ambassador  Gerard — fresh  from  a  visit  to  President  Wilson 
— made  the  banquet  speech  in  Berlin,  telling  the  Kaiser's  gov- 
ernment that  the  friendly  relations  between  them  and  us  were 
never  better ! 

What  new  departure  from  her  war  policies  and  practises 
did  Germany  make,  after  that? 

She  didnH  make  any. 

What  motives  are  leading  our  Republic  into  this  furious 
world- war?     What  do  we  seek? 

What  German  possession  do  we  covet?  Wliat  has  she 
done  to  us,  that  our  Navy  is  unable  to  avenge  and  redress  and 
rectify  ? 

For  Heaven's  sake,  think  it  over! 

Don't  get  drunk  on  words,  by  absorption.  Try  to  fix  your 
mind  on  actual  facts. 

What  dangers  threaten  us? 

Where  are  we  attacked? 

How  came  we  to  be  involved  in  this  European  maelstrom? 

No  German  soldier  has  harmed  us.  No  German  army 
faces  us.  The  wide,  wide  ocean  rolls  between  us.  German 
troops  are  battling  for  dear  life,  right  now,  to  keep  from  hav- 
ing to  re-cross  the  Rhine. 

Every  gun,  every  iiorse,  every  man  that  Germany  can  bring 
up,  has  been  brought  up,  to  bar  the  avenging  French  out  of 
German  territory. 

Don^t  you  know  that? 

Can't  our  ruling  powers  see  it? 

Why,  then,  should  we  compel  our  young  men  to  go  to  Eu- 
rope, when  no  part  of  Europe  can  possibly  come  against  us? 

The  idea  of  German  soldiers  attacking  us,  is  monstrous 
It  would  be  laughable,  if  the  tragic  element  were  not  so  ter- 
ribly predominant. 

Germany  assail  us? 

God  in  Heaven !  Germany's  night-mare,  right  now,  is  the 
vision  of  the  infuriated  Frenchman,  on  the  German  side  of  the 
Rhine,  wreaking  his  pent-up  wrath  upon  German  mothers, 
wives,  daughters,  and  helpless  children,  in  retaliation  for  the 
indescribable  horrors  which  German  soldiers  have  inflicted 
upon  the  innocent  non-combatants  of  France. 

Another  article  in  the  Augusta  Herald,  last  Sunday,  begp.n 
thus: 

London  (By  Mail). — "I  live  now  for  only  one  thing,  for  I  hava 
lost  everything — my  husband,  my  sons,  my  home,  my  only  daugh- 
ter,  who  was  ruined  by  a  German  devil.     I  am  going  to  pray  to 


8 

President   F.  .^care  that   one  day   he   will   give  a   German   into   my 
hands,  that  I  may  tear  out  his  eyes  with  my  own  fingers." 

That  is  what  an  old  French  woman  said  to  Miss  E.  Almaz  Stout, 
in  the  region  just  reconquered  by  the  British  from  the  Germans. 
Miss  Stout  has  just  come  from  that  stricken  portion  of  France.  She 
brought  back  with  her  memories  of  terrible  scenes,  awful  suffering 
and  hardship,  and  a  people  stricken  wantonly  to  earth  as  their 
German  foes  retreated. 

I  spare  you  the  details. 

Do  you  suppose  that  the  consuming  hatred,  burning  in  the 
old  French  woman's  heart,  is  absent  from  the  hearts  of  the 
French  soldiers? 

And  can  you  imagine  that  the  Germans  do  not  know  what 
they  may  expect,  when  the  turn  of  the  Frenchman  comes  ? 

They  do  know  what  to  expect,  and  they  are  fighting  fran- 
tically, straining  ever}^  nerve,  to  stave  oft'  that  fearful  day  of 
French  revenge ! 

Seeing  actual  conditions  as  I  do,  through  the  metropolitan 
papers  of  the  East  and  North,  I  have  scant  patience  with 
Americans  who  have  gone  wild  at  the  Bugaboo  of  a  German 
invasion. 

A  friend  out  in  Texas  presents  a  view  which  doubtless 
prevails  wideJy: 

Dear  Sir:  Granted  that  Germany  secures  a  victory  over  her 
enemies,  and  demands  the  possession  of  their  navies  as  the  price 
of  that  victory.  She  then  comes  into  possession  of  the  English,  the 
French,  and  the  Italian  navies.  These  and  her  own  are  practically 
unimpaired.  Would  she  be  able  to  unite  these  fleets  and  assail, 
successfully,  our  Atlantic  Sea  Ports  and  the  Panama  Canal?  Would 
she,  in  fact,  have  to  land  an  army  of  conquest  in  order  to  demand 
and  enforce  of  us  the  payment  of  her  vast  war  debt?  Would  our 
navy  and  land  fortifications  enable  us  to  preserve  such  cities  as 
Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Washington,  Baltimore,  and  on 
down  the  line  to  Galveston?  And  what  about  Tampico,  and  the 
Mexican  oil  supply? 

Let  us  have  your  views  on  the  above  statements  and  questions 
in  the  Jeff.  Yours  truly, 

The  writer  is  a  gentleman  who  is  far  above  the  average 
in  education  and  intelligence.    Let  us  reason  together: 

//  "Germany  secures  a  victory." 

Must  we  plunge  into  the  war,  with  no  better  footing  than 
aniT'i 

Let  me  answer,  with  an  "^7,"  or  two. 

If  Germany  couldn't  secure  a  victory  when  she  caught 
England  napping,  how  can  she  hope  to  secure  it  now,  after 
England  has  raised  an  army  of  five  million  men  ? 


If  Germany  could  not  secure  a  victory  when  she  was  ad- 
vancing upon  Paris  with  all  her  banners  flying,  how  can  she 
hope  to  do  it  now,  when  her  disasters  have  cost  the  lives  of  a 
million  of  her  best  troops,  and  when  she  is  no  longe.-  able  to 
regain  any  lost  ground? 

If  the  German  people,  full  fed  and  full  ready,  could  not 
defeat  France^— aZmos^^  taKen  by  surprise — how  can  she  now 
hope  to  do  it,  when  the  German  people  are  exhausted,  half- 
starved,  and  heart-sick  of  the  War? 

If  Germany  could  not  secure  a  victory  when  her  allies  were 
whole-hearted  in  their  unity,  how  can  she  now  hope  to  do  it, 
when  Austria,  Turkey,  and  Bulgaria  are  separately  intriguing 
for  peace,  through  the  pope? 

Why  should  the  United  States,  near  the  end  of  the  third 
year  of  the  war,  when  Germany  is  losing  on  all  fronts,  be 
more  afraid  of  her  than  we  were  during  the  first  year,  when 
she  was  victorious  on  all  fronts? 

Her  fleet  ventured  out  once,  and  then  limped  back,  to  stay. 

Not  a  German  flag  is  to  be  seen  on  all  the  seas. 

Her  raiders  have  been  sunk;  her  battleships  driven  to  shel- 
ter, and  bottled  up ;  her  merchant  fleet  annihilated. 

Her  submarines  sink  a  few  fishing  smacks,  and  freight 
schooners.     That's  all. 

Five  thousand  vessels  go  in  and  out  of  the  English  ports, 
every  week:  the  submarines  have  never  sunk  as  many  as  40  a 
week,  of  these  real  ships  of  the  merchant  marine 

Forty  out  of  5,000 ! 

And  the  English  ship-yards  are  turning  out  new  ships, 
faster  than  the  German  U-boats  can  sink  the  old  ones ! 

So,  you  see,  when  we  reason  together,  the  danger  of  Ger- 
man victory,  and  German  conquest  of  all  the  fleets,  fades  into 
nothingness. 

(Since  the  above  was  written,  the  sinkings  of  English  ves- 
sels has  dropped  to  15  a  week ! ) 

The  New  York  TForZc?— staunchest  of  Democratic  Wilson 
papers— had  an  account  last  week  of  the  profits  which  young 
J.  P.  Morgan  had  thus  far  made  out  of  the  war. 

The  amount  was  ninety  million  dollars. 

A  long  life  of  Wall  Street  piracy  had  given  the  elder  Mor- 
gan a  fortune  of  $75,000,000. 

He  had  enjoyed  succulent  favors  from  many  Presidents, 
and  had  put  his  honest  little  sickle  into  many  a  luscious  bond- 
deal,  including  that  midnight  deal  with  his  ex-attornev,  Presi- 
dent Cleveland. 

But  the  Civil  War  bonds,  the  many  refunding  shuffles,  the 


10 

Central  of  Georgia  Railroad  manipulations,  the  Steel  Trust 
organization,  and  sundry  other  virtuous  brigandages  and  cor- 
sairages.  had  left  the  old  man  blessed  in  worldlj^  goods  to  the 
extent  of  only  $75,000,000. 

The  son  of  Morgan,  the  Wall  Street  Pirate,  was  a  basketful 
of  chips  oft*  the  paternal  block ;  and,  as  luck  would  have  it,  the 
European  War  commenced  almost  at  the  same  time  that  these 
paternal  chips  got  into  the  Street. 

In  less  than  three  years,  the  younger  Morgan  has  made, 
out  of  the  War,  more  than  his  honored  and  lamented  father 
made  out  of  the  Civil  War,  the  Spanish- American  War,  the 
Panama  hand-made  "Revolution;"  the  Chinese  War,  and 
three  well-grown  Panics^  two  of  which  Morgan  himself  pre- 
cipitated. 

Ninety  million  dollars  in  three  years,  comes  to  thirty  a 
year,  or  more  than  two  millions  a  month. 

The  New  York  World  reports  that  Morgan  made  $18,000,- 
000  on  one  loan  for  the  Allies,  "floated"  by  him  at  the  modest 
rate  of  12  per  cent  commission. 

I  guess  he  owns  a  Life  Insurance  Company,  bought  the 
paper  of  the  Allies  with  his  Insurance  surplus,  and  put  the 
commission  in  his  private  pocket. 

Now,  when  you  regard  Morgan  as  a  type,  rather  than  as 
an  individual,  and  remember  that  he  represents  the  greed  of 
soulless  Capitalists  incorporated  by  law,  favored  by  legisla- 
tion ever  since  the  War  between  the  States,  fortified  by  court 
decisions  made  by  lawyers  whom  they  elevated  to  the  bench, 
and  constantly  guarded  from  the  peril  of  reformatory 
measures  by  their  docile  serfs  in  the  Governmental  livery, 
you  can  begin  to  see  what  are  the  selfishly  sordid  sources  of  all 
this  fanatical  clamor  for  an  American  army  in  Europe. 

What  do  such  Capitalists  care,  if  a  hundred  thousand  of 
your  sons  are  freighted  to  German  factories,  and  boiled  into 
oil,  made  into  soap,  mixed  for  fertilizer,  or  prepared  as  pig- 
feed? 

My  countrymen!  The  deadliest  danger  to  your  country 
and  to  your  liberties  lies  on  this  side  of  the  ocean. 

American  Prussianism  is  not  aimed  at  German  Prussia: 
it  is  aimed  at  the  plundered  American  producers;  and  aimed 
hy  the  plundering  non-producers. 

The  Standing  Army  is  to  be  built  up,  on  the  Prussian 
model,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  and  perpetuating  an 
infernal  system  of  class-legislation,  which  enriches  the  non- 
producing  classes,  by  the  pillage  of  the  producing  masses. 

The  Standing  Army's  real  purpose  is,  to  support  a  heart- 


11 

less  Aristocracy  of  Dollars,  whose  patents  of  nobility  are  writ- 
ten in  the  "laws"  which  confer  Special  Privileges  upcm  incor- 
porated wealth. 

You  see  a  few  grey-headed  men  sitting  on  the  side-walk, 
or  on  the  piazza  of  the  cross-roads  store:  ask  them  how  the 
world  of  today  compares  with  the  world  that  they  lived  in, 
before  the  War  between  the  States. 

They  will  tell  you,  that  the  world  of  today  is  altogether 
different. 

Everything  is  changed,  and  not  for  the  better. 

Before  1860,  there  were  no  price-fixing  Trusts;  no  monop- 
olies intrenched  in  Federal  legislation;  no  railroad  lawyers 
controlling  the  courts ;  no  gag-laws  threatening  the  press ;  no 
legalized  Money  Trust  financing  gigantic  Speculations  which 
rob  the  people ;  no  huge  national  debt  devouring  in  taxes  the 
substance  of  the  producers;  no  artificial  inequalities  in  the 
distribution  of  the  common  wealth,  caused  by  congressional 
laws  which  enable  one  class  to  despoil  all  the  others;  no  stu- 
pendous fortunes  heaped  up  by  law  on  one  side  of  the  street, 
while  the  other  side  of  the  same  street  is  littered  with  the  piti- 
ful wrecks  of  wronged  humanity. 

No !  None  of  these  terrible  conditions  existed  before  the 
War  of  the  Sixties. 

The  tears  will  fill  the  eyes  of  the  old  folks  as  they  tell  you 
how  different  the  country  used  to  be. 

What  changed  it  so? 

The  War. 

The  Spanish- American  War  gave  another  tremendous  im- 
pulse to  Imperialism,  Centralism,  Capitalism,  Special  Priv- 
ilege, and  Dollar  Autocracy. _ 

Under  President  Wilson,  those  consolidating  tendencies 
have  been  enormously  advanced.  No  check  whatever  has  been 
placed  upon  the  Supreme  Sovereignty  of  the  Specially  Priv- 
ileged Dollar. 

And  now  those  Sovereign  Dollars,  mad  with  insatiable  lust 
for  more,  are  driving  you  headlong  into  the  vastest  whirlpool 
known  to  history;  and  not  one  of  your  sentinels  upon  the 
watch-tower  has  the  foresight  and  courage  to  warn  you  of 
the  breakers  ahead. 

It  is  sad  beyond  words. 

In  the  most  appalling  crisis  of  our  national  life,  we  look 
in  vain  for  A  Man. 

We  yearn  for  a  leader — a  Saul  whose  head  lifts  itself  above 


12 

the  crowd ;  a  strong  man  who  has  the  eye  to  see,  and  the  soul 
that  is  not  afraid. 

But  we  yearn  vainly.  We  have  no  strong  njan.  We  have 
no  leader.     We  have  no  statesman  at  the  helm. 

Once  upon  a  time,  Daniel  Webster  stood  forth  in  the  Sen- 
ate, challenged  the  Federal  Administration,  and  said  with  a 
voice  that  no  President  dared  to  ignore — 

"y^M  have  no  constitutional  right  to  conscript  American 
citizens  into  an  armyy 

The  greatest  constitutional  lawyer  that  ever  lived  spoke 
thus  to  President  Madison,  during  the  War  of  1812;  and  the 
conscription  bill  died,  under  Webster's  herculean  blows. 

True,  the  Union  conscripted  men  in  the  third  year  of  the 
Civil  War,  when  the  Republic  was  in  the  throes  of  a  titanic 
civil  convulsion;  but  it  was  done  as  an  extreme,  self-preserv- 
ing war  measure. 

No  such  imperative  necessity  exists  now. 

No  such  imperative  necessity  can  ever  again  arise. 

Then  y:hy  conscript  a  million  men? 

The  Catholic  prelates  are  publicly  jubilant  over  the  fact, 
that  they  have  already  made  our  Navy  40  per  cent  Eomanist. 

Nearly  one -half! 

Protestant  evangelism  has  been  barred  out  of  the  Army, 
and  of  course  it  has  no  chance  at  the  battle-ship:  therefore, 
Kome  and  Militarism  march  together  toward  Autocracy. 

A  discouraged  Georgia  merchant  writes  me — 

My  Dear  Sir:  Just  read  your  paper.  Notice  you  printeu  petition 
for  people  to  sign  and  forward  to  Congress,  asking  not  to  be  sent 
across  to  Europe  to  be  slaughtered,  &c. 

Do  you  know  the  people  have  given  up  everything  that  smacks 
of   freedom? 

We  don't  feel  that  there  is  use  to  do  anything.  Our  manhood 
is  gone,  we  feel  like  sheep  waiting  for  the  slaughter.  What  good 
is  there  in  signing  and  mailing  petitions  to  Congress? 

Do  they  care  to  know  the  will  of  constituents?  Or  will  they 
learn  the  will  of  "Higher  Ups?"  In  fact,  half  the  people — "fresh 
g'-own  ups" — don't  know  or  care  what  the  Constitution  says.  The 
other  half  have  given  up  the  fight.  We  are  now  waiting  to  be 
offered  up,  and  for  what? 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  Czar  of  Russia  was  badly  treated. 

So  far  as  I  ever  heard,  he  hadn't  legalized  a  Money  Trust, 
jBnanced  a  colossal  Cotton  gamble,  destroyed  a  constitutional 
military  system,  demanded  despotic  power  over  prices,  or  in- 
sisted upon  the  gagging  of  public  opinion. 


13 

'The  poor  little  Czar  Kad  not  laid  tremendous  taxes  upon 
the  Russians,  in  order  to  show  himself  off  as  the  lender  of 
hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  to  England,  France,  Italy,  and 
Belgium. 

Having  had  four  years  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  I  wonder 
how  we  would  now  enjoy  a  few  years  under  Kaiser  William. 

I  can't  remember  that  this  German  autocrat  ever  taxed  his 
own  people,  to  get  money  to  lend  out  to  foreign  nations. 

It  has  escaped  my  fickle  recollection,  if  the  Kaiser  ever 
ran  his  boot  through  the  German  constitution. 

Did  autocratic  William  ever  smite,  with  his  mailed  fist, 
the  reserved  rights  of  the  25  German  States  ? 

I  don't  recall  it. 

Did  the  President  have  the  constitutional  authority  to  order 
the  State  militia  into  Mexico  ?    He  had  not. 

Did  Congress  have  the  constitutional  authority  to  tax  this 
country,  to  raise  money  to  lend  to  Europe?    It  had  not. 

Has  Congress  the  constitutional  authority  to  adopt  com- 
pulsory military  service?    It  has  not. 

Has  the  Federal  Government  the  power,  under  the  Consti- 
tution, to  raise  armies  by  conscription?    It  has  not. 

That  question  was  debated  and  settled,  in  the  War  of  1812, 
and  it  is  therefore  res  adjudicata. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration  was  forced  to  resort 
to  conscription  during  the  third  year  of  the  Civil  War,  it  was 
a  ivar  measure,  like  the  suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus,  and  the 
Emancipation  of  the  slaves. 

President  Lincoln  did  not  pretend  that  he  was  proceeding 
constitutionally. 

In  our  day,  we  Democrats  are  so  eager  to  be  usurpers,  that 
we  adopt  a  foreign  war,  to  get  a  chance  to  demolish  the  Con- 
stitution. 

Don't  you  reckon  Thomas  Jefferson  turned  over  in  his 
grave,  when  Son-in-law  McAdoo  handed  the  British  visitor 
that  little  check  for  $250,000,000,  as  a  loan  out  of  our  taxes? 

Don't  you  reckon  Daniel  Webster  would  have  had  a  stroke 
of  apoplexy,  if  President  Andrew  Jackson  had  proposed  to 
lay  taxes  on  the  American  people,  to  raise  loans  for  England  ? 

Don't  you  reckon  Grover  Cleveland  would  have  had  a  fit, 
if  he  had  been  asked  to  tax  America  for  foreign  accommoda- 
tion? 

We  first  lend  foreign  nations  hundreds  of  millions  of  dol- 
lars, because  they  snarled  themselves  into  a  universal  tangle. 


14 

and  then  we  propose  to  lend  them  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
soldiers. 

In  other  words,. we  do  their  banking  and  their  fighting,  just 
as  though  the  War  had  been  started  by  ourselves. 

Our  Government  plays  cat  to  the  European  monkey,  and 
rakes  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire,  for  the  monkey. 

And  some  folks  call  it  statesmanship! 
■    It  didn't  use  to  go  by  that  name. 


LITTLE  NOTES  ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 

In  round  numbei-s,  the  amount  of  money  that  Uncle  Sam 
has  loaned  to  foreign  nations,  is  five  thousand  millions  of 
dollars. 

The  North  American  States  which  declared  themselves  in- 
dependent sovereigns,  on  July  4,  1776 — and  which  were  ac- 
knowledged to  be  such  by  Great  Britain — afterwards  met  in 
convention,  by  State  delegations,  and  created  a  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, for  specified  purposes. 

These  purposes  were  such  as  the  States  could  not  well  deal 
with,  separately,  without  conflicting  laws,  varying  systems, 
and  consequent  confusion. 

The  States  desired  a  Federal  agency,  or  government,  for 
the  establishment  of  uniformity  in  our  relations  with  foreign 
powers,  uniformity  in  the  currency  system,  the  postal  system, 
the  commercial  system,  the  naturalization  of  foreigners,  the 
enactment  of  laws  relating  to  commerce,  and  the  raising  of 
armies  to  repel  i7ivasion,  suppress  insurrection,  and  enforce  the 
laws  of  the  Union. 

To  enable  the  newly-created  Federal  agency,  or  govern- 
ment, to  carry  out  the  foregoing  purposes — for  which  the  sov- 
ereign States  had  voluntarily  created  it — the  Federal  Union 
was  empowered  to  levy  taxes  directly  upon  the  people,  instead 
of  calling  upon  the  States  for  what  was  needed. 

Eealizing  that  these  taxes  would  be  insufficient,  sometimes, 
the  sovereign  States  authorized  the  Federal  Union  to  borrow 
money. 

Consult  any  constitutional  lawyer,  and  he  will  tell  you  that 
the  foregoing  outline  gives  you  substantially  the  truth  about 
the  origin  and  character  of  our  Federal  Government. 

This  being  undeniable,  you  can  readily  see  what  a  tre- 
mendous usurpation  has  been  accomplished,  when  the  Federal 


\  15 

Union  takes  from  the  people  enormous  sums  of  money,  to  lend 
to  foreign  nations. 

Why  didn't  the  Democratic  party  produce  A  Man,  who 
would  stand  up  in  Congress,  and  fight  this  tremendous  usur- 
pation ? 

Because  President  Wilson  calls  himself  a  Democrat,  and 
his  own  so-called  Democrats  cannot  fight  their  Chief. 

Why  didn't  the  Republican  party  produce  men  enough  to 
combat  the  usurpation? 

Because  the  Republican  party  believes  in  a  centralized 
Federal  Government  which  usurps  power,  and  tramples  upon 
the  States  and  the  people. 

Dmocracy,  the  name,  hypnotizes  the  Democrats;  while  au- 
tocracy, the  thing,  charms  the  Republicans. 

It's  as  it  used  to  be  with  Prohibition,  in  Kansas :  the  Drys 
liked  the  situation,  because  they  had  the  law;  and  the  Wets 
liked  it,  because  they  had  the  liquor. 

When  Daniel  Webster  successfully  opposed  the  conscrip- 
tion law  of  1814,  he  illustrated  his  unanswerable  argument  by 
asking  his  brother  Senators,  whether  the  constitutional  au- 
thority to  borrow  money  could  be  distorted  by  the  Govern- 
ment into  a  tyrannical  power  to  force  a  loan  from  the  people. 

He  argued  that  the  Federal  Government  had  no  more  legal 
right  to  force  the  citizen  into  the  Army,  than  it  had  to  force 
him  to  lend  his  money  to  the  Government. 

Can  you  answer  the  argument? 

Can  anybody  do  so? 

Let  one  of  our  War-whoop  dailies  try  it! 

Mr.  Webster's  speech  was  made  to  the  Senate  on  Decem- 
ber 9,  1814.  The  weight  of  his  reasoning  was  so  great,  that 
it  killed  the  bill  for  conscription. 

At  that  time,  the  country  was  in  distress,  because  the 
War  with  England  had  lasted  two  years,  and  the  Eastern 
States  had  refused  to  contribute  troops. 

Less  than  four  months  before  Webster  made  his  speech 
against  conscription,  the  British  had  scattered  our  forces  at 
Bladensburg,  had  looted  and  burned  the  public  buildings  of 
Washington  City,  and  had  chased  President  Madison  into  the 
Virginia  backwoods. 

Yet,  Congress  refused  conscription,  even  under  those  trying 
circumstances.  In  other  words.  Congress  refused  to  hecome 
an  odious,  tyrannical  usurper. 

Congress  relied  upon  the  patriotic  volunteer,  and  the  vol- 
unteer did  not  fail  his  country  in  its  hour  of  need. 


16 

Even  as  Daniel  Webster  spoke  in  the  Senate,  with  the  ruins 
of  the  British  invasion  all  around  him,  the  Southern  volun- 
teers, led  by  Andrew  Jackson,  were  marshalling  their  rifles 
for  the  bloody  victory  of  New  Orleans,  won  SO  days  after 
Congress  killed  conscription. 

Why  are  the  papers  belittling  the  heroic  volunteer,  who 
used  to  be  the  subject  of  song  and  story,  of  the  artist's  brush 
and  the  sculptor's  chisel? 

Look  at  your  great  historic  paintings,  commemorating  the 
triumphs  of  our  War  of  Independence — who  are  the  heroic 
figures  painted  there,  for  the  admiration  of  all  future  gen- 
erations ? 

They  are  volunteers ! 

Nobody  conscripted  George  Washington,  and  Nathaniel 
Greene. 

No  act  of  Congress  infused  patriotic  valor  into  Francis 
Marion,  Israel  Putnam,  Dr.  Warren,  Col.  Prescott,  Harry 
Lee,  Daniel  Morgan,  John  Eagar  Howard,  John  Sevier, 
Elijah  Clark,  David  Twiggs,  and  sturdy  old  General  Lincoln. 

They  were  all  volunteers. 

How  can  we  now  sneer  at  the  volunteer,  ridicule  him,  and 
cartoon  him,  without  defiling  the  monuments  of  Nathan  Hale, 
of  Gen.  Sumter,  of  Paul  Jones,  of  Commodore  Perry,  of  the 
heroes  of  Lexington,  of  the  patriots  of  King's  Mountain? 

God  in  Heaven !  Some  secret,  subtle,  sinister  influence 
seems  to  be  systematically  at  work,  with  diabolical  art,  to 
change  the  ivhole  American  mind. 

The  very  things  that  used  to  be  held  in  highest  reverence, 
are  now  being  defamed.  The  papers  and  cartoonists  demean 
the  very  men  and  things  that  used  to  inspire  the  orator,  the 
artist,  the  poet,  and  the  historian. 

How  do  you  explain  it  ? 

The  fact,  is  patent :  what  is  the  hidden  motive? 

General  Lee  was  not  a  conscript:  he  was  the  volunteer 
commander  of  the  finest  army  the  world  ever  saw — the  volun-^ 
teer  Atmy  of  Northern  Virginia! 

General  Grant  was  not  a  conscript,  nor  were  his  best  sol- 
diers forced  into  the  ranks:  they  were  volunteers. 

The  Union  troops  conscripted  in  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Boston,  and  Chicago  did  not  compare,  in  heroic  earnestness, 
with  the  volunteers  of  the  West,  and  the  volunteers  who  left 
the  Southern  mountains  to  fight  for  the  old  flag. 

Why  should  the  Prussian  militarists  of  today  desecrate  the 
graves  of  the  volunteer  patriots,  of  both  sides,  who  gave  their 


17 

lives  at  Manassas,  at  Shiloh,  and  in  the  Battles  around  Rich- 
mond ? 

It  will  be  the  worst  of  bad  days,  when  the  concealed  movers 
of  the  puppet  editors  and  puppet  Congressmen  succeed  in  con- 
vincing the  American  people,  that  the  only  respectable  gov- 
ernment is  based  upon  the  idea  that  the  people  have  no  intelli- 
gence, no  patriotism,  no  spontaneous  courage,  but  must  be 
driven,  by  acts  of  legislation,  into  blind  obedience  to  the  united 
powers  of  Capitalism  and  Catholicism. 

For  you  must  be  stone  blind,  if  you  do  not  see  that  the 
blackest  agencies  of  the  Roman  church  are  desperately  co- 
operating with  incorporated,  privileged,  and  aggressive  Capi- 
talism. 

My  words  may  carry  no  weight :  I  am  only  one  little  editor, 
of  a  small  interior  town,  discredited  by  the  Great,  because  I 
advocated,  too  soon,  the  measures  they  afterwards  had  to 
appropriate. 

But  while  my  words  carry  no  weight,  perhaps  those  of 
Daniel  Webster  may;  and  I  will  lay  before  you  the  gist  of 
what  he  said  against  conscription,  at  a  time  when  British 
troops  were  fighting  on  our  own  soil,  when  British  ships 
were  bombarding  our  forts,  and  when  British  wreckage 
strewed  the  public  places  of  Washington  City: 

But,  Sir,  there  is  another  consideration.  The  services  of  the 
men  to  be  raised  under  this  act  are  not  limited  to  those  cases  in 
which  alone  this  government  is  entitled  to  the  aid  of  the  militia  of 
the  States.  These  cases  are  particularly  stated  in  the  Constitution — 
"to  repel  invasion,  suppress  insurrection,  or  execute  the)  laws."  But 
this  bill  has  no  limitation  in  this  respect. 

This,  then,  Sir,  is  a  bill  for  calling  out  the  Miltia  not  according 
to  its  existing  organization,  but  by  draft  from  new  created  classes 
— not  merely  for  the  purpose  of  repelling  invasion,  suppressing 
insurrection,  or  executing  the  laws,  but  for  the  general  objects  of 
war. 

What  is  this.  Sir,  but  raising  a  standing  army  out  of  the  Militia 
by  draft,  and  to  be  recruited  by  draft,  in  like  manner,  as  often  as 
occasions  require? 

This  bill,  then,  is  not  different  in  principle  from  the  other  bills, 
plans,  and  resolutions  which  I  have  mentioned.  The  present  dis- 
cussion is  properly  and  necessarily  common  to  them  all.  It  is  a 
discussion.  Sir,  of  the  last  importance.  That  measures  of  this  na- 
ture should  be  debated  at  all,  in  the  councils  of  a  free  government, 
is  a  cause  of  dismay.  The  question  is  nothing  less  than  whether 
the  most  essential  rights  of  personal  liberty  shall  be  surrendered, 
and  despotism  embraced  in  its  worst  form. 

I  have  risen,  on  this  occasion,  with  anxious  and  painful  emotions, 
to  add  my  admonitions  to  what  has  been  said  by  others.     Admoni- 


18 

tion  and  remonstrance,  I  am  aware,  are  not  acceptable  strains.  They 
are  duties  of  unpleasant  performance. 

I  am  anxious  above  all  things,  to  stand  acquitted  before  God, 
and  my  conscience,  and  in  the  public  judgments,  of  all  participation 
in  the  Counsels,  which  have  brought  us  to  our  present  condition 
and  which  now  threaten  the  dissolution  of  the  government.  When 
the  present  generation  of  men  shall  be  swept  away  and  that  this 
government  ever  existed  shall  be  a  matter  of  history  only,  I  believe 
that  it  may  then  be  known  that  you  have  not  proceeded  in  your 
course  unadmonished  and  unforewarned.  Let  it  then  be  known  that 
there  were  those,  who  would  have  stopped  you,  in  the  career  of 
your  measures,  and  hold  you  back,  as  by  the  skirts  of  your  gar- 
ments, from  the  precipice,  over  which  you  are  plunging,  and  draw- 
ing after  the  government  of  your  Country. 

Let  us  examine  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  power  which  is 
assumed  by  the  various  military  measures  before  us.  In  the  present 
want  of  men  and  money,  the  Secretary  of  War  has  proposed  to 
Congress  a  Military  Conscription.  For  the  conquest  of  Canada  the 
people  will  not  enlist,  and  if  they  would  the  treasury  is  exhausted 
and  they  could  not  be  paid.  Conscription  is  chosen  as  the  most 
promising  instrument,  both  of  overcoming  the  *reluctance  to  the 
Service,  and  of  subduing  the  difficulties  which  arise  from  the  de- 
ficiencies of  the  exchequer.  The  administration  asserts  the  right 
to  fill  the  ranks  of  the  Regular  Army  by  compulsion.  It  contends 
that  it  may  now  take  one  out  of  every  twenty-five  men,  and  any 
part  or  whole  of  the  rest,  whenever  its  occasions  require.  Persons 
thus  taken  by  force  and  put  into  an  army  may  be  compelled  to 
serve  there,  during  the  war,  or  for  life.  They  may  be  put  on  any 
service,  at  home  or  abroad,  for  defense  or  for  invasion,  according 
to  the  will  and  pleasure  of  the  government. 

Is  this.  Sir,  consistent  with  the  character  of  a  free- government? 
Is  this  civil  liberty?  Is  this  the  real  character  of  our  constitution? 
No,  Sir,  indeed  it  is  not.  The  Constitution  is  libelled,  foully  libelled. 
The  people  of  this  country  have  not  established  for  themselves  such 
a  fabric  of  despotism.  They  have  not  purcjiased  at  a  vast  expense 
of  their  own  treasures  and  their  own  blood  a  Magna  Charta  to  be 
slaves. 

Where  it  is  written  in  the  Constitution,  in  what  article  or  section 
is  it  contained  that  you  may  take  children  from  their  parents  and 
parents  from  their  children  and  compel  them  to  fight  the  battles  of 
any  war  which  the  folly  or  the  wickedness  of  government  may  en- 
gage it?  Under  what  concealment  has  this  power  lain  hidden  which 
now  for  the  first  time  comes  forth,  with  a  tremendous  and  baleful 
aspect,  to  trample  down  and  destroy  the  dearest  rights  of  personal 
liberty?  Who  will  show  me  any  constitutional  injunction  which 
makes  it  the  duty  of  the  Amreican  people  to  surrender  everything 
valuable  in  life,  and  even  life  itself,  not  when  the  safety  of  their 
country  and  its  liberties  may  demand  the  sacrifice,  but  whenever 
the  purposes  of  an  ambitious  and  mischievous  government  may  re- 
quire it? 

Sir,  I  almost  disdain  to  go  to  quotations  and  references  to 
prove  that  such  an  abominable  doctrine  has  no  foundation  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  country.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  that  instru- 
ment was  intended  as  the  basis  of  a  free  government,  and  that  the 
pow«r  contended   for  is  incompatible  with   any  notion   of  personal 


19 

liberty  An  attempt  to  maintain  this  doctrine  upon  the  provisions 
of  the  Constitution  is  an  exercise  of  perverse  ingenuity  to  extract 
slavery  from  the  substance  of  a  free  government.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  show  by  proof  and  argument,  that  we  ourselves  are  subjects  of 
despotism  and  that  we  have  a  right  to  chains  and  bondage,  firmly 
secured  to  us  and  our  children  by  the  provisions  of  our  government. 
It  has  been  the  labor  of  other  men  at  other  times,  to  mitigate  and 
reform  the  powers  of  government  by  construction,  to  support  the 
rights  of  personal  security  by  every  species  of  favorable  and  benign 
interpretation,  and  thus  to  infuse  a  free  spirit  into  governments 
not  friendly  in  their  general  structure  and  formation  to  public 
liberty.  ^         ^^  .. 

The  supporters  of  the  measures  before  us  act  on  the  opposite 
principle  It  is  theii-  task  to  raise  arbitrary  powers,  by  construction, 
out  of  a  plain  written  charter  of  National  Liberty.  It  is  their  pleas- 
ing duty  to  free  us  of  the  delusion,  which  we  have  fondly  cherished, 
that  we  are  the  subjects  of  a  mild,  free,  and  limited  government, 
and  to  demonstrate  by  a  regular  chain  of  premises  and  conclusions, 
that  government  possesses  over  us  a  power  more  tyranmcal,  more 
arbitrary,  more  dangerous,  more  allied  to  blood  and  murder,  more 
fuU  of  every  form  of  mischief,  more  productive  of  every  sort  of 
misery,  than  has  been  exercised  by  any  civilized  government,  with 
one  exception,  in  modem  times. 

Congress  having,  by  the  Constitution,  a  power  to  raise  armies, 
the  Secretary  contends  that  no  restraint  is  to  be  imposed  on  the 
exercise  of  this  power,  except  such  as  is  expressly  stated  in  the 
written  letter  of  the  instrument.  In  other  words,  that  Congress 
may  execute  its  powers  by  any  means  it  chooses,  unless  such  means 
are  particularly  prohibited.  But  the  general  nature  and  object  of 
the  Constitution  impose  as  rigid  restriction  on  the  means  of  exer- 
cising potver  as  could  be  done  by  the  most  explicit  injunctions.  It 
is  the  first  principle  applicable  to  such  a  case,  that  no  construction 
shall  be  admitted  which  impairs  the  general  nature  and  character 
of  the  instrument.  A  free  Constitution  of  government  is  to  be  con- 
strued upon  free  principles,  and  every  branch  of  its  provisions  is 
to  receive  such  an  interpretation  as  is  full  of  its  general  spirit.  No 
means  are  to  be  takne  by  implication,  which  would  strike  us  ab- 
surdly if  expressed.  And  what  would  have  been  more  absurd,  than 
for  this  conbstitution  to  have  said,  that  to  secure  the  great  blessings 
of  liberty  It  gave  to  government  an  uncontroUed  power  of  military 
conscription?  Yet  such  is  the  absurdity  which  it  is  made  to  exhibit 
under  the  commentary  of  the  Secretary  of  War. 

A  compulsory  loan  is  not  to  be  compared,  in  point  of  enormity, 
with  a  compulsoi-y  military  service. 

If  the  Secretary  of  War  has  proved  the  right  of  Congress  to 
enact  a  law  enforcing  a  draft  of  men  out  of  the  Militia  into  the 
regular  Army,  he  will  at  any  time  be  able  to  prove  quite  as  clearly 
that  Congress  has  power  to  create  a  Dictator.  The  arguments  which 
have  helped  him  in  one  ease,  will  equally  help  him  in  the  other. 
The  same  reason  of  a  supposed  or  possible  state  necessity  which  is 
urged  now,  may  be  repeated  then  with  equal  pertinency  and  effect. 
Sir,  in  granting  Congress  the  power  to  raise  armies,  the  People 
have  granted  all  the  means  which  are  ordinary  and  usual,  and 
which  are  consistent  with  the  liberties  and  security  of  the  People 
themselves,  and  they  have  granted  no  others.  To  talk  about  the 
unlimited  power  of  the  government  over  the  means  to  execute  its 


20 

authority,  is  to  hold  a  language  which  is  tme  only  in  regard  to 
despotisms.  The  tyranny  of  Arbitrary  Government  consists  as  much 
In  its  means  as  in  its  ends,  and  it  would  be  a  ridiculous  and  absurd 
constitution  which  should  be  less  cautious  to  guard  against  abuses 
in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other.  All  the  means  and  instruments 
which  a  free  government  exercises,  as  well  as  the  ends  and  objects 
it  pursues,  are  to  partake  of  its  own  essential  character,  and  to  be 
conformed  to  its  genuine  spirit.  A  free  government,  'ivith  arbitrary 
means  to  administer  it,  is  a  contradiction:  a  free  government,  with- 
out adequate  provisions  for  personal  security,  is  an  absurdity:  a 
free  government  with  an  uncontrolled  power  of  military  conscrip- 
tion is  a  solecism,  at  once  the  most  ridiculous  and  abominable  that 
ever  entered  into  the  head  of  man. 

Who  shall  describe  to  you  the  horror  which  your  orders  of 
Conscription  shall  create  in  the  once  happy  villages  of  this  country? 
Who  shall  describe  the  anguish  and  distress  which  they  will  spread 
over  those  hills  and  valleys,  where  men  have,  heretofore,  been 
accustomed  to  labor  and  to  rest  in  security  and  happiness.  Antici- 
pate the  scene.  Sir,  when  the  class  shall  assemble  to  stand  its  draft 
and  to  throw  tlie  dice  for  blood.  What  a  group  of  wives  and  mothers 
and  sisters,  of  helpless  age  and  helpless  infancy,  shall  gather  round 
the  theatre  of  this  horrible  lottery,  as  if  the  strokes  of  death  were 
to  fall  from  heaven  before  their  eyes,  on  a  father,  a  son,  or  a  hus- 
band. And  in  the  majority  of  cases.  Sir,  it  will  be  a  stroke  of  death. 
Under  present  prospects  of  a  continuance  of  the  war,  not  one-half 
of  them  on  whom  your  conscription  shall  fall,  will  ever  return  to 
tell  the  tale  of  their  sufferings. 

They  will  perish  of  disease  and  pestilence,  or  they  will  leave 
their  bones  to  whiten  in  fields  beyond  the  frontier.  Does  the  lot 
fall  on  the  father  of  a  family?  His  children,  already  orphans,  shall 
see  his  face  no  more.  When  they  behold  him  for  the  last  time  they 
shall  see  him  lashed  and  fettered,  and  dragged  away  from  his  o>vn 
threshold,  like  a  felon  and  an  outlaw.  Does  it  fall  on  a  son,  the 
hope  and  staflf  of  aged  parents?  That  hope  shall  fail  them.  On 
that  staff  they  shall  lean  no  longer.  They  shall  not  enjoy  the  happi- 
ness of  dying  before  their  children.  They  shall  totter  to  their 
graves,  bereft  of  their  offspring,  and  unwept  by  any  who  inherit 
their  blood.  Does  it  fall  on  a  husband?  The  eyes  which  watch  his 
parting  steps  may  svpim  in  tears  forever.  She  is  a  wife  no  longer. 
There  is  no  relation  so  tender  or  so  sacred,  that,  by  these  accursed 
measures,  you  do  not  propose  to  violate  it.  Into  the  paradise  of 
domestic  life  you  enter,  not  indeed  by  temptations  and  sorceries,  but 
by  open  force  and  violence.     *      *      * 

Nor  is  it.  Sir,  for  the  defense  of  his  own  house  and  home  that 
he  is  subject  to  military  draft  is  to  perform  the  task  allotted  to  him. 


Thus  spoke  the  greatest  constitutional  lawyer  this  country 
ever  produced.    His  argument  killed  the  conscription  hill. 

He  asserted,  with  statesmanly  foresight  and  wisdom,  that 
the  same  usurped  powers  which  create  an  Army  by  conscrip- 
tion, could  with  equal  ease  create  a  Dictator. 

Hasn't  this  Congress  carried,  in  one  hand,  a  Conscription 
bill,  and,  in  the  other,  a  bill  to  give  the  President  the  unlimited 


21 

authority  to  gag  the  press  and  fix  the  prices  of  all  commodi- 
ties? 

Isn't  that  the  same  as  vesting  him  with  the  despotic  power 
of  a  Dictator? 

No  king  that  ever  lived  wielded  more  autocratic  control 
than  President  Wilson  has  demanded! 

The  European  War  has  already  intimidated  free  speech, 
and  made  the  average  citizen  afraid  to  sign  a  Petition  to  the 
Government^  although  the  U.  S.  Constitution  guarantees  him 
that  right,  forever. 

The  War  has  also  furnished  the  enemies  of  free  press  with 
the  excuse  for  giving  the  Postmatser- General  autocratic  power 
to  7mle  papers  and  magazines  out  of  the  m^ails,  thus  taking 
away  a  man's  property  without  any  proceeding  in  court,  and 
robbing  him  arbitrarily  of  one  of  the  most  valuable  rights  of 
citizenship. 

The  wise  Frenchman,  De  Tocqueville,  who  wrote  a  great 
book,  a  hundred  years  ago,  on  "Democracy  in  America," 
said — 

In  countries  where  the  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
prevails,  the  censorship  of  the  press  is  not  only  dangerous,  but  ab- 
surd. When  the  right  of  every  citizen  to  a  share  in  the  government 
or  society  is  acknowledged,  every  one  must  be  presumed  to  be  able 
to  choose  between  the  various  opinions  of  his  contemporaries,  and 
to  appreciate  the  different  facts  from  which  inferences  may  be 
dra^vn.  The  sovereignty  of  the  people  and  the  liberty  of  the  press 
may  therefore  be  regarded  as  correlative;  just  as  the  censorship  of 
the  press  and  universal  suffrage  are  two  things  which  are  irrecon- 
cilably opposed,  and  which  cannot  long  be  retained  among  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  same  people. 

Even  the  abuses  of  the  press  must  be  tolerated.  Tracing 
the  steps  possible  in  any  attempt  to  repress  them,  he  con- 
cludes : 

And  now  you  have  succeeded,  everybody  is  reduced  to  silence. 
But  your  object  was  to  repress  the  abuses  of  liberty,  and  you  are 
brought  to  the  feet  of  a  despot.  You  have  been  led  from  the  ex- 
treme of  independence  to  the  extreme  of  servitude,  without  finding 
a  single  tenable  position  on  the  way  at  wMch  you  could  stop. 

Anonymous  letters  warn  me  against  expressing  a  free  man's 
opinions  against  conscription,  against  Wilsonian  autocracy, 
and  against  Prussian  militarism  which  is  being  introduced 
under  the  mask  of  democracy. 

Do  these  anonymous  warners  mean  to  say,  that  I  am  not 
to  exercise  as  much  freedom  of  speech  as  Benj.  H.  Hill  did, 


22 

when  he.  spoke  in  Atlanta  against  Federal  usurpations,  during 
the  evil  days  of  Reconstruction? 

Are  we  to  be  railroaded  into  a  Capitallistic-Catholic  despot- 
ism, without  even  the  privilege  of  a  protest? 

It  seems  that  the  volunteer  patriots  of  1776  were  a  deluded 
lot  of  lunatics ;  and  that  the  heroes  of  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion were  guilty  of  a  heinous  crime  in  revolting  against  Papal- 
ism. 

Volunteer  patriotism  is  now  a  mockery  and  a  byeword; 
while  a  Protestant  who  dares  to  protest  against  the  steady 
encroachments  of  modern  popery,  is  a  traitor  whose  mouth 
must  be  closed  by  an  arrest,  or  whose  publication  must  be 
thrown  out  of  the  mails. 

After  having  paid  their  visit  to  the  President,  some  mem- 
bers of  the  British  Comimlssion,  which  came  over  to  stimulate 
us  to  answer  the  British  cry  for  "Help,"  motored  down  to 
Baltimore,  to  pay  their  respect  to  the  American  General  of  the 
Jesuits. 

Prince  James  Gibbons  received  his  English  courtiers,  with 
urbane  graciosity,  wined  and  dined  them  in  his  palace,  and 
sent  them  back  to  Washington  chortling  with  satisfaction. 

What  has  England  ever  done  for  us,  that  we  should  now 
do  so  much  for  her?    And  what  has  Gibbons  got  to  do  with  it? 

The  daily  War- Whoops,  and  Semi- weekly  War-Dances,  and 
weekly  Steam-whistles  all  tell  us  that  we  never  before  faced 
such  a  crisis. 

"^Vho  made  this  crisis? 

What  interests  worked  it  up? 

Why  did  the  British  Commissioners  make  such  a  point  of 
quickly  conferring  with  Cardinal  Gibbons? 

Bless  goodness !  we've  been  at  war  with  Germany  for  more 
than  three  months,  and  Germanv  hasn't  paid  the  slightest  at- 
tention to  us. 

Germany  goes  right  along  fighting  on  the  same  old  battle- 
field, burning  a  few  hundred  thousand  slain  enemies,  and 
making  soap-grease  out  of  the  others,  and  she  doesn't  seem 
to  know  or  care  what  sort  of  monkey  doings  we  are  up  to. 

Germany  won't  come  over  and  fight  us;  and  therefore  we 
will  go  over,  and  fight  her. 

To  cross  a  pond  3,000  miles  wide,  hunting  for  trouble,  is 
one  way  to  bring  on  a  "crisis." 

"Never  before  have  we  had  such  a  crisis" — say  the  daily 
War- Whoops  and  the  weekly  War-Dances.  No,  indeed :  never 
before  did  we  travel  into  foreign  lands,  hunting  for  one. 


23 

Son-in-law  McAdoo  is  almost  becoming  irritated,  over  the 
failure  of  the  people  to  invest  in  his  preliminary  bond-issue 
of  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars. 

By  the  time  the  average  man  pays  for  something  to  eat, 
and  something  to  wear — and  his  rent,  road-tax,  poll-tax, 
school-book  bills,  and  a  few  other  little  sky-high  necessaries 
— ^he  is  not  "so  situated"  that  he  can  lend  the  Government  two 
thousand  million  dollars. 

Speaking  for  the  Southern  States,  I  can  say,  that  Brother 
McAdoo  helped  the  Speculators  skin  us  so  artistically^  on  6- 
cent  cotton,  that  we  haven't  had  much  loose  change  in  our 
pockets  since. 

It's  all  we  can  do  to  pay  10  cents  apiece  for  biscuits,  25 
cents  for  hoecakes,  and  20  cents  a  pound  for  sow-belly. 

When  Brother  McAdoo  loaned  the  Speculator  $30  to  buy 
our  bale  of  cotton  with,  and  then  handed  the  same  Specu- 
lator an  Insurance  policy  of  $70  on  the  same  bale,  we  got  a 
bitter  taste  in  our  mouths,  and  it's  there  yet. 

We  are  just  human ;  and  we  thought  it  an  infernal  outrage 
for  the  Government  to  make  itself  a  party  to  a  gamble,  in 
which  the  farmer  was  victimized,  directly,  to  the  extent  of  four 
hundred  million  dollars,  inside  of  three  months. 

A  subscriber  asks  me  to  tell  the  people  how  to  lawfully  get 
out  of  conscription. 

There  is  but  one  way :  test  the  matten  in  the  courts. 

I  cannot  afford  to  imitate  Bishop  Keiley's  method.  This 
Roman  prelate — sworn  subject  of  a  foreign  ruler — tried  a 
Georgia  statute  in  his  own  mind,  by  the  medieval  law  of  his 
foreign  sovereign,  and  pronounced  the  Georgia  statute  invalid. 

He  follows  up  this  treasonous  conduct,  by  defying  the 
State,  setting  himself  above  the  Courts,  and  ordering  his 
women  to  resist  the  grand  jury  in  the  performance  of  its  legal 
duty. 

Not  being  the  sworn  subject  of  a  foreign  potentate,  I  can- 
not indulge  in  the  luxury  of  setting  myself  above  the  law, 
or  of  advising  others  to  do  so. 

Any  father,  or  mother,  whose  son  is  about  to  be  conscripted, 
or  who  has  been  conscripted,  can  lawfully  stop  the  proceed- 
ings by  applying  to  a  Judge — either  State  or  Federal — for  an 
Injunction,  or  for  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus,  according  to 
the  status  of  the  case. 

This  was  done  in  Washington  City  when  the  Government 
was  about  to  take  a  minor,  who  had  volunteered,  and  send  him 
to  Mexico,  against  the  will  of  his  parents. 

Of  course,  any  man  who  has  been  conscripted,  or  who  is 


->» 


24 

threatened  with  conscription,  can  also  apply  to  the  Courts 
for  relief. 

Congress  cannot  give  the  President  greater  powers  than 
the  Constitution  gives  to  Congress. 

Test  this  new  law,  in  a  lawful  way,  hy  an  appeal  to  the  old 
Supreme  Law. 

If  the  new  law,  made  by  the  Congress  of  1917,  violates  the 
old  Supreme  Law,  made  by  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 
1787,  the  Judges  will  so  hold,  and  will  set  it  aside,  presumably. 

I  cannot  understand  the  paralysis  which  prostrates  our 
people,  and  causes  them  to  supinely  give  up  their  own  flesh 
and  blood  to  new  fangled  statutes  of  Congressional  usurpers. 

The  States,  in  creating  the  Federal  Government,  did  not 
give  to  Congress  the  authority  to  raise  an  Army  by  compulsion. 

The  States  possess  the  sovereign  right  to  create  a  militia, 
and  this  militia  was  put  at  the  disposal  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment for  three  purposes,  only. 

The  States,  speaking  througk  their  delegates  in  the  Con- 
gressional Convention  of  1787,  said,  that  the  new  proposed 
Federal  Union  could  call  upon  the  States  for  their  militia  and 
use  it,  for  the  repelling  of  an  invasion,  the  suppression  of 
an  insurrection,  and  the  execution  of  the  laws. 

Heretofore,  the  standing  Army  has  been  filled  by  volun- 
teer enlistments:  it  is  now  the  law,  under  the  recent  Act  of 
Congress,  that  the  standing  Army  shall  henceforth  be  filled 
by  forcible  selection  of  the  best  available  men. 

The  law  is  unconstitutional.  It  is  an  arbitrary  act  of  usur- 
pation. 

English  liberties  were  made  good  against  the  tyranny  of 
hereditary  kings,  by  leaders  who  resisted  encroachments  upon 
their  persons  and  their  purses. 

American  liberties  are  in  danger  of  being  lost,  because  we 
have  no  leaders  to  resist  governmental  encroachments. 

Previous  to  the  War  between  the  States,  political  educa- 
tion was  maintained  by  public  discussions  of  great  principles, 
by  great  men. 

Since  the  War,  political  education  has  been  neglected ;  and 
the  people  who  once  knew  that  they  were  sovereigns,  with 
ample  power  to  control  their  public  affairs,  now  act  upon  the 
idea  that  they  are  subjects,  without  the  liberty  of  doing  any- 
thing, except  to  pay  taxes,  and  obey  the  orders  of  those  in 
office. 

In  the  American  Forum,  Cardinal  Gibbons  —  who  never 
fails  to  let  the  Catholics  know  how  the  Italian  pope  wants 


25 

them  to  vote — published  a  card  in  favor  of  universal  com- 
pulsory military  service. 

What  reason  did  this  tricky  old  Jesuit,  professed  repre- 
sentative of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  give  for  his  warlike  utter- 
ances? 

He  declared  that  compulsory  service  will  instill  into  our 
young  men  "the  spirit  of  obedience:  it  will  teach  them  the 
dignity  of  obedience  ...  as  an  homage  rendered  to  God, 
since  they  will  consider  their  superiors,  God's  representatives." 

Precisely:  there's  the  papal  idea! 

Let  all  power  be  held  above  the  people:  let  them  under- 
stand that  their  swperiors  are  God's  representatives:  let  them 
pay  all  expenses,  and  obey  all  orders,  being  happy  in  the  faith 
of  bliss  in  the  life  to  come. 

The  American  idea  has  been  different,  but  is  rapidly 
changing. 

Our  idea  has  been,  that  the  people  are  the  source  of  power, 
and  that  public  oflBcials  are  public  servants,  responsible  to 
their  sovereign  masters,  th^  people. 

According  to  the  Baltimore  Papal  Prince — who  never 
misses  an  opportunity  to  put  the  Italian  pope  into  our  politics 
— President  Wilson  is  not  the  servant  of  a  sovereign  com- 
monwealth, but  is  the  Divine  Right  ruler,  chosen  by  God. 

American  citizens  must  not  henceforth  use  their  own  minds, 
and  act  upon  their  own  convictions,  but  must  meekly  obey 
every  order  coming  from  those  in  authority;  and  if  those 
orders  do  violence  to  the  conscientious  opinions  of  the  citizen, 
he  must  render  obedience  "as  an  homage  rendered  to  God." 

That's  what  Popery  taught,  after  it  had  effected  the  union 
of  Church  and  State  in  the  Roman  Empire,  and  that's  what 
brought  the  Dark  Ages  upon  Europe. 

Those  Dark  Ages  lasted  a  thousand  years.  During  those 
black  and  bloody  centuries,  there  was  no  education  for  the 
masses,  no  preaching  to  the  congregations,  no  Bible  they  coulfi 
read,  no  libraries  accessible  to  the  common  man;  and  no  lib- 
erties, such  as  the  ancients  had  enjoyed,  before  the  Roman 
bishops  became  monsters  of  -ambition,  avarice,  lust,  and 
tyranny. 

During  those  Dark  Ages,  the  voice  of  the  Roman  church 
was  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  foxy  old  Jesuit,  Cardinal 
Gibbons. 

The  Princes  of  the  Church  then  said,  as  they  now  do, 
that  authority  is  from  God,  not  from  the  people,  and  that  it 
is  homage  to  God  to  meekly  obey  those  who  are  in  authority. 

It  was  against  this  monstrous  doctrine,  that  the  more  inde- 


26 

pendent  Catholics  at  last  had  to  revolt:  it  had  become  too 
oppressive  for  humanity  to  bear. 

The  revolt  of  the  Catholic  barons  of  England  "wrung,  from 
a  kingly  vassal  of  the  Italian  pope,  the  Great  Charter  of  our 
liberties;  and  the  Italian  pope  pronounced  the  hitter  curse  of 
Rome  upon  that  Charter. 

Gibbons  hates  it,  now,  ^ust  as  it  was  hated  by  Pope  Inno- 
cent III.^  when  he  laid  his  satanic  curse  upon  its  glorious  prin- 
ciples. 

The  amazing  thing  to  me  is,  that  our  people  do  not  appear 
to  realize  that  the  reactionary  principles  of  medieval  ab- 
solutism. Divine  Right,  One-man  power,  are  being  systemat- 
ically substituted  for  those  progressive  principles  of  popular 
self-government,  for  which  so  many  millions  of  our  great  white 
race  worked,  suffered,  wrote,  preached,  organized,  fought, 
and  died. 

The  old  foes  of  humanity  are  coming  back. 

The  old  battles  will  have  to  be  re-fought. 

The  children  forgot  what  their  fathers  told  them:  their 
sons  will  bear  the  burden,  and  pay  the  penalty. 

There  is  a  post-card  picture  that  you  may  have  seen,  repre- 
senting an  Indian,  out  on  the  snow-covered  plains  of  the 
Northwest,  leaning  against  a  telegraph  pole,  listening — with  a 
face  which  expresses  awe,  curiosity,  bewilderment,  and  fear — 
to  the  humming  of  the  wires  overhead. 

The  name  of  the  picture  is,  "The  Song  of  the  Talking 
Wire." 

My  friends  and  countrymen,  let  me  tell  you  a  terrible 
truth — 

You  and  I  know  as  little  about  whafs  going  on^  behind  the 
scenes  of  Governmental  action^  at  this  time,  as  that  Indian 
knew  about  the  messages  going  over  those  wires! 


27 


THE    GREAT  WAR,   PRUSSIAN    MILITARISM 

AND  THE  RECONSTRUCTION  OF 

MODERN  CIVILIZATION 

When  a  nation  or  a  city  is  alarmed  by  the  approach  of  epi- 
demic disease,  what  course  is  adopted? 

Do  the  authorities  send  out  a  large  number  of  healthy  citi- 
zens to  catch  the  infection  and  bring  it  into  the  alarmed  com- 
munity, or  do  they  quarantine  against  it? 

If  the  authorities  should  open  the  way  for  the  entrance 
of  the  plague,  they  would  be  considered  insane,  and  if  they 
should  send  forth  large  numbers  of  sound  men  t©  contract  the 
pestilence  and  bring  it  in,  they  would  be  considered  criminal. 

Now  consider  this  foreign  horror  which  goes  by  the  name 
of  Prussian  militarism :  what  is  the  best  way  to  treat  it  ? 

Should  we  shut  it  out,  or  should  we  send  a  million  men  to 
catch  itf 

As  long  as  Prussian  militarism  stays  in  Prussia,  its  none 
of  our  business. 

If  that  is  what  the  Germans  like,  let  them  have  it. 

We  have  not  discussed  the  existence  of  autocracy  in  Japan : 
we  have  not  bothered  our  heads  about  autocracy  in  Spain: 
we  made  no  protest  against  the  autocracy  of  Russia. 

Why  have  we  suddenly  become  responsible  for  the  uni- 
verse ? 

To  show  you  how  wildly  vague  are  the  prevailing  notions 
about  our  embarking  upon  the  European  War,  I  will  quote 
the  preamble  to  Dr.  Gambrell's  resolution  adopted  by  the 
Southern  Baptist  Convention,  a  few  days  ago: 

The  Southern  Baptist  Convention,  assembled  in  the  City  of 
New  Orleans,  May  19th,  1917,  representing  the  views  commonly 
held  by  the  Baptists  everywhere — contemplating  with  mingled  feel- 
ings of  sorrow  and  hope  the  conflict  of  the  great  nations,  which  we 
recognize  as  a  struggle  of  militarism,  autocracy  and  special  privilege 
against  the  simple,  fundamental,  indefeasible  and  inalienable  human 
rights. 

Can  you  imagine  a  more  indefinite  declaration,  as  to  the 
purposes  which  drag  us  into  the  quicksands? 

Is  "autocracy"  confined  to  any  one  nation?  Is  special  priv- 
ilege a  European  monopoly?    Is  militarism  a  local  curse? 

It  is  a  most  lamentable  fact,  that  there  isn't  a  government 
on  earth  which  is  not  afflicted  with  one  or  the  other  of  these 
evils;  and  anyone  who  knows  about  the  land  monopoly  in 


28 

England,  the  special  privileges  of  American  manufacturers, 
and  the  militarism  even  of  Switzerland,  will  read  with  aston- 
ishment Dr.  Gambrell's  statement,  that  we  are  going  to  cross 
an  ocean  3,000  miles  wide,  in  order  that  we  may  help — with 
blood  and  treasure — crush  militarism  in  Germany. 

The  Gambrell  resolution  further  declared,  as  to  our  aim 
in  the  War: 

We  insist  that  in  the  reconstruction  of  modern  civilization  now 
going  on  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  his  counsellors, 
whom  Providence  has  thrust  into  the  leadership  of  advancing  civ- 
ilization shall,  in  the  final  adjustment  of  the  issues  involved,  see 
to  it  that  everywhere  religious  persecutions  shall  cease,  that  preach- 
ing and  the  exercise  of  religion  shall  be  free  to  every  human  soul. 

I  give  the  above  because  it  fairly  represents  current  opinion. 

Dr.  Gambrell  spoke  for  his  resolution,  and  was  vigorously 
applauded.  His  resolutions  were  enthusiastically  adopted,  and 
they  were  published  as  the  official  voice  of  nearly  three  million 
white  Baptists. 

Is  a  "reconstruction  of  modern  civilization  now  going  on"  ? 

Did  the  Almighty  thrust  President  Wilson  into  a  second 
term  ? 

When  I  hear  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  talking  to  a  great 
gathering  of  brother  ministers,  and  telling  them,  in  etfect,  that 
God  elected  to  have  seven  million  soldiers  slain,  and  seven 
million  homes  desolated,  as  a  preliminary  to  a  "reconstruction 
of  modern  civilization,"  I  confess  my  inability  to  understand 
that  conception  of  God  and  of  religion. 

Not  one  of  those  private  soldiers  was  in  the  least  respon- 
sible for  autocracy,  special  privilege,  or  militarism. 

Those  who  were  responsible  are  still  alive,  occupying  the 
high  seats  in  life. 

If  Christian  civilization  needed  "reconstruction,"  after  the 
religion  of  Christ  had  been  supreme  for  1,000  years,  who  was 
at  fault? 

Never  have  I  known  the  churches  to  wage  bloodless  but 
earnest  wars  against  autocracy,  special  privilege,  and  mili- 
tarism. 

On  the  contrary,  the  organized  clergy  of  the  churches  have 
given  zealous  support  to  established  autocracy,  special  privi- 
lege, and  militarism. 

And  they  are  doing  it  now. 

But  the  point  I  want  to  make  clear  to  my  readers  is  this — 

Prussian  militarism  cannot  harm  u^,  unless  loe  plant  it  in 
our  soil. 


29 

The  English  sparrow  was  never  an  American  pest  until  the 
Government  imported  a  few  pairs,  and  built  boxes  for  them 
to  nest  in. 

The  English  hare  never  became  a  national  affliction  in 
Australia,  until  some  deluded  person  imported  a  few  pairs 
to  that  nevr  country. 

Asiatic  cholera  never  comes  into  Europe  and  America, 
until  some  traveller  brings  it. 

How  can  Prussian  militarism  be  imported  and  planted  in 
the  United  States? 

If  the  idea  once  takes  possession  of  our  military  men,  who 
can  keep  them  from  planting  it? 

That  the  idea  has  long  been  fixed  in  the  minds  of  our  mili- 
tary men,  no  one  can  deny. 

They  have  admired  the  German  system,  and  considered  it 
the  climax  of  military  excellence. 

The  quick  and  brilliant  victories  that  Prussia  gained  over 
Denmark,  Austria,  and  France,  caused  the  whole  military 
world  to  study  German  drill,  German  arms,  German  tactics, 
and  German  compulsory  service. 

This  was  natural.  Every  man  with  a  trade  or  profession, 
reads  and  thinks  with  especial  reference  to  that  trade  or  pro- 
fession. 

If  he  is  a  progressive,  ambitious  man,  he  wants  to  im- 
prove his  trade,  or  profession. 

When  Germany  produced  her  new  needle-gun,  in  1866,  the 
military  world  discarded  the  old  muzzle-loaders. 

I  cijt^  this,  as  a  familiar  fact;  and  it  illustrates  my  propo- 
sition, namely — that  German  successes  caused  the  military 
class  to  study  and  imitate  German  methods. 

This  being  so,  Prussian  militarism  has  long  been  a  fixed 
idea  in  the  heads  of  American  military  officers. 

From  the  General  Staff  at  Washington  City,  that  idea  has 
permeated  the  whole  military  system.  From  that  source,  has 
come  the  propositions  which  overthrow  the  American  system 
and  establish  the  German. 

The  American  system  embodied  in  the  U.  S.  Constitution 
is  based  primarily  upon  State  militia,  to  be  called  into  national 
service  when  needed  to  repel  invasion,  suppress  insurrection, 
or  overcome  resistance  to  the  laws. 

Mr.  Webster  set  this  forth  with  absolute  clearness  in  the 
great  argument  from  which  I  quoted  last  week. 

But  the  virtual  abolition  of  the  States,  as  enroUers  of  vol- 
unteers, to  be  handed  over  to  the  general  Government  when, 
legally  requisitioned;  the  substitution  of  a  national  conscript 


30 

system  which  enables  the  Government  to  press  into  service 
the  citizens  of  the  States ;  the  scornful  disregard  of  Governors 
and  the  arbitraiy  subjection  of  the  citizen  to  military  use, 
either  at  home  or  abroad-^-all  this  constitutes  a  new  system, 
and  its  essence  is  Prussian. 

Thus  the  idea  of  the  thing ^  which  has  long-  been  in  the 
minds  of  our  military  men,  has  at  last  produced  the  thing 
itself. 

Therefore  when  Dr.  Gambrell,  or  any  one  else,  talks  about 
our  going  to  war  against  ?nilitarisni,  he  might  as  well  talk 
about  the  old  woman  who  went  to  hunt  for  her  spectacles 
when  she  had  them  on  her  head. 

I  was  a  member  of  Congress  at  the  time  General  Cutting, 
of  California,  first  introduced  one  of  those  revolutionary  Prus- 
sian bills.  It  was  about  to  pass  without  attracting  attention, 
because  General  Cutting  suavely  assured  the  House  that  it  was 
nothing  more  than  a  necessary  modernizing  of  the  State 
militia. 

However,  I  read  the  bill  and  saw  that  it  proposed  a  revo- 
lution by  robbing  the  Governors  of  the  control  of  State  troops, 
and  vesting  supreme  control  in  the  President. 

In  my  speech,  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  secure  the  atten- 
tion of  Gen.  William  C.  Gates,  of  Alabama,  one  of  the  Demo- 
cratic wheel-horses. 

He  promptly  came  to  my  assistance,  and  the  bill  was  de- 
feated. 

It  came  back  afterwards  in  another  Congress,  and  neither 
Gen.  Gates  nor  I  was  there  to  fight  it. 

Under  the  name  of  the  Dick  bill,  it  became  tlie  origin  of 
our  present  "militarism,"  which  Dr.  Gambrell  believes  we  will 
wipe  out  when  we  invade  Europe. 


Nothing  that  I  can  say  or  do  pleases  some  people,  and 
these  are  now  saying  that  I  favored  the  war  until  President 
Wilson  came  to  that  view. 

Readers  of  this  paper  know  better.  They  know  that  I  ear- 
nestly favored  the  dismissal  of  the  German  ambassador,  im- 
mediately after  the  Lusitania  massacre;  and  also  the  seizure 
of  the  alien  Turks,  Bulgarians,  Austrians,  and  Germans,  as 
hostages. 

Not  a  line  in  this  paper  ever  indicated  that  I  favored  con- 
scription, or  the  sending  of  conscripts  to  France,  or  the  crea- 
tion of  dictatorial  powers  for  the  President. 

That  our  fleet  should  take  a  hand  in  the  fight  for  neutral 
rights  on  the  high  seas,  I  believed  and  said;  but  I  never  even 


31 

dreamed  of  the  possibility  of  a  vast  conscription  of  our  young 
men  for  land-service,  and  in  Europe. 

My  position  has  been  perfectly  consistent;  and  it  might 
be  likened  to  that  of  a  farmer  who  prays  for  rain,  but  doesn't 
want  a  deluge  that  will  ruin  his  crops  and  take  off  most  of 
his  soil. 

I  am  not  "too  proud  to  fight,"  as  the  President  said  he 
was,  but  I  am  too  conservative  to  leave  the  New  World  and 
go  hunting  for  a  fight  in  the  Old  World. 

The  German  fleet  is  bottled  up,  and  the  U-boats  have  proved 
to  be  more  exasperating  than  effective ;  consequently,  I  cannot 
see  why  our  magnificent  navy  is  unable  to  protect  our  neutral 
rights  on  the  ocean. 

Hon.  Charles  H.  Brand,  of  Georgia,  expressed  the  views 
of  a  large  percentage  of  the  people  in  his  speech  in  Congress, 
April  28,  1917.    He  said— 

The  full  war  strength  of  the  National  Guard  is  about  287,000 
soldiers.  The  full  war  strength  of  the  Regular  Army  is  about  625,- 
000  soldiers.  Here  is  a  provision  of  law  already  in  existence,  ap- 
proved by  the  Army  and  the  President,  for  raising  an  army  of 
nearly  1,000,000,  all  that  the  President  is  now  calling  for,  and  it  is 
my  honest  judgment  that  this  million  men  should  be  raised  in  this 
way  before  resorting  to  conscTiption.  The  volunteer  system  has 
been  approved  by  the  President  in  the  past.  The  truth  is  jio  Eng- 
lish-speaking country  on  the  face  of  the  earth  has  ever  drafted  its 
citizens  at  the  beginning  of  a  war.  No  country  on  earth  which  ever 
went  to  war  has  failed  first  to  call  for  volunteer  enlistments.  No 
country  in  Europe  has  any  conscript  law  whereby  soldiers  may  be 
sent  across  the  seas  to  engage  in  a  war  except  by  special  authority 
first  being  granted  by  its  legislative  body. 

Besides,  all  the  wars  that  this  country  has  ever  engaged  in  or 
ever  won  were  won  by  volunteer  soldiers.  No  European  country, 
so  far  as  I  know,  ever  resorted  at  the  beginning  of  a  war  to  con- 
scription to  raise  an  army.  It  is  currently  reported  in  Washington 
that  some  of  the  Army  officers  were  themselves  opposed  to  con- 
scription and  were  in  favor  of  giving  the  volunteer  system  a  trial 
before  resorting  to  conscription. 

Maj.  W.  C.  Harllee,  of  the  United  States  Marine  Corps,  who  has 
served  in  that  branch  for  17  years,  in  testifying  before  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  said: 

Unwilling  men  burden  armies,  eat  its  substance,  retard  its  action, 
and  give  it  panic.  I  am  opposed  to  universal  service  or  compulsory 
service,  or  any  other  kind  of  service  than  that  rendered  by  willing 
men. 

Some  well-informed  people  tn  Congress  charge  that  the  conscrip- 
tion scheme  is  a  pet  of  the  General  Staff  of  the  Army,  and  that  the 
War  College  finally  persuaded  the  Prftident  to  give  it  his  approval. 

The  President  and  Secretary  of  War  Garrison  differed  upon  this 
very  subject,  which  difference  resulted  in  the  latter's  resigning  from 


32 

the  Cabinet.  On  February  10,  1916,  the  President  wrote  Secretary 
Garrison,  in  part,  as  follows: 

"As  I  have  had  occasion  to  say  to  you,  I  am  not  yet  c<Snyinced 
that  the  measure  of  preparation  for  national  defense  which  we  deem 
necessary  can  be  obtained  through  the  Instrumentality  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard  under  Federal  control  and  training.  As  you  know, 
I  do  not  at  all  agree  'with  you  in  favoring  compulsory  enlistment  for 
training,  and  I  fear  the  advocacy  of  compulsion  before  the  conunit- 
toe  of  the  House,  on  the  part  of  the  representatives  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  War,  has  greatly  prejudiced  the  House  against  the  proposal 
for  a  continental  army,  little  necessary  connection  as  there  is  be- 
tween the  plan  and  the  opinion  of  the  Chief  of  Staffff  on  compulsory 
enlistment." 

On  Memorial  Day  the  President  made  a  speech  at  Arlington,  in 
which  he  made  this  statement: 

"I  have  heard  a  great  many  people  talk  about  universal  train- 
ing. Universal  voluntary  training  with  all  my  heart  if  you  wish  it, 
but  America  does  not  wish  anything  but  compulsion  of  the  spirit  of 
America." 

Thomas  Jefferson,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  John  Adams,  ex- 
pressed himself  on  conscription  as  follows: 

"In  Virginia  draft  was  ever  the  most  unpopular  and  impracticable 
thing  that  could  be  attempted,  our  people  even  under  monarchial 
government  had  learned  to  consider  it  as  the  last  of  all  oppressions." 

Now,  if  you  are  disposed  to  treat  me  fairly,  you  will  see 
that  Congressman  Brand,  without  intending  to  do  it,  proved 
in  Congress  that  my  present  position  against  conscription,  not 
only  accords  with  that  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  but  with  the  opin- 
ions of  President  Wilson,  as  expressed  by  him  a  year  ago. 

It  is  the  President  who  has  changed,  not  I. 

Secretary  Garirison  resigned  because  the  Presidents  posi- 
tion in  February,  1916,  was  exactly  the  same  as  mine. 

People  should  remember  that  not  only  did  President  Wil- 
son oppose  conscription  in  February,  1916,  and  virtually  put 
Mr.  Garrison  out  of  the  Cabinet  because  Garrison  favored  it, 
but  late  in  December  of  last  year,  President  Wilson  attempted 
to  act  as  peacemaker  among  the  belligerents . 

Suppose  that  his  eftbrt  had  been  successful,  what  would  he 
have  done  about  all  those  preceding  German  atrocities,  on  ac- 
count of  which  he  now  proposes  to  draft  an  army  for  service 
beyond  the  seas? 

What  was  it  that  so  totally  changed  his  mind  after  the  last 
days  of  December,  when  he  saw  nothing  to  cause  us  to  take 
part  in  the  European  fighting  ? 

Congressman  Brand  further  said — 

9 

Conscription  has  never  yet  made  a  good  soldier  of  a  man  who 
was  opposed  to  war. 


33 

Legislative  authority  to  conscript  men  does  not  supply  patriot- 
ism and  bravery  when  it  is  lacking. 

You  can  not  make  a  fighter  of  anyone  by  legislation. 
The  truth  is  that  the  volunteer  system  has  become,  by  reason 
of  use  and  age  and  the  long  recognition  of  the  wisdom  of  its  adop- 
tion by  the  people  of  our  country,  the  law  of  the  land.  The  volun- 
teer system  is  the  rule  of  raising  an  army  by  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  Conscription  is  the  exception,  and  when  the  exception  is  in- 
voked a  case  of  stern  necessity  and  grave  national  peril  should 
exist. 

For  the  life  of  me  I  can  not  see  at)  present  any  necessity,  excuse 
or  reason  for  sending  an  army  of  our  boys  against  their  will  to  Eu- 
rope, as  is  contemplated  to  be  done  in  the  Army  bill. 

And  yet  the  Army  officers  and  the  War  College  are  bent  on  having 
an  army  of  boys  under  20  years  of  age.  Hon.  John  Temple  Graves, 
in  an  article  in  the  New  York  American,  over  his  own  signature, 
stated  that  the  chairman  of  the  War  College  told  him  if  the  bill 
passed  it  was  their  intention  to  organize  an  army  of  500,000  men 
under  20  years  of  age.  Bear  in  mind  that  they  propose  to  con- 
script them  to  make  up  this  great  army.  Unless  a  greater  menace 
and  necessity,  and  a  more  portentious  peril  than  now  appears  should 
require  it,  I  will  never  by  my  vote  indorse  such  a  monstrous  propo- 
sition. 

My  view  is  that  if  the  administration  thinks  it  necessary  to  send 
an  army  to  Europe  at  this  time  that  it  should  be  composed  of  those, 
and  only  those,  who  are  willing  to  go. 

In  my  judgment  it  is  unwise  to  send  an  army  to  Europe  at  this 
time,  whether  composed  of  volunteers  or  conscripts;  but  to  me 
this  is  immaterial  if  those  only  are  sent  who  are  willing  to  go. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  compel  me  to  vote  to  give 
the  volunteer  system  a  trial. 

In  addition  to  these,  the  Army  bill,  which  we  are  peremptorily 
demanded  to  vote  for,  is  objectionable  to  me  for  several  reasons, 
though  by  adopting  amendment  after  amendment  in  the  committee 
room  and  which  we  hope  will  be  done  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
much  of  its  sting  and  fangs  will  be  removed. 

The  War  College  or  Army  bill  contemplated  that  a  military 
board  composed  only  of  Army  officers  should  pass  on  who  should 
go  to  the  trenches  and  who  should  remain  at  home  under  the  select 
conscription  plan,  while  tne  committee  bill  provided  that  a  majority 
of  this  board  should  be  composed  of  civilians,  and  home  people  at 
that. 

Under  the  Army  bill  the  exempting  officer  representing  the  Gov- 
ernment, whoever  he  may  be,  will  decide  who  will  go  to  war  and 
who  shall  stay  at  home.  This  officer  has  the  life,  liberty,  and  free- 
dom of  every  man  drawn  under  his  direction  and  control.  He  and 
those  under  him  will  decide  who  shall  go  to  war  and  who  shall 
remain  at  home.  He  can  take  a  white  man  after  being  drawn  from 
the  box  and  leave  a  negro,  and  vice  versa.  In  effect,  one's  liberty 
and  freedom  is  in  the  hands  of  this  officer  the  minute  his  name  is 
drawn  from  the  box. 

The  Army  bill  does  not  provide,  as  many  believe,  for  the  exemp- 
tion of  married  men.  It  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  because 
a  man  is  married  that  he  will  not  be  sent  to  the  war.  Unless  his 
family  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  him — and  the  exempting  officer 
is  to  be  the  judge  of  this — he  will  be  given  his  marching  roders. 


34 

In  my  judgment  this  Army  bill,  if  enacted  ias  proposed,  means 
the  beginning  in  this  country  in  times  of  peace  of  a  regular  standing 
army.  It  means  universal  compulsory  military  service,  and  nothing 
short  of  it.  A  regular  standing  army  in  times  of  peace  is  contrary 
to  all  the  cherished  ideals  of  this  great  Republic,  and  repugnant 
to  American  institutions  and  democratic  traditions.  We  should  be 
careful  lest  in  attempting  to  destroy  militarism  and  autocracy  abroad 
we  will  do  those  things  which  will  have  a  tendency  to  destroy  democ- 
racy at  home.  A  great  standing  army  in  America  involves  the 
establishment  of  a  military  caste  which  is  socially  superior  to  any 
other  caste  and  which  is  not  amenable  to  the  rules  of  conduct  laid 
down  for  the  civilian  members  of  society.  It  discriminates  between 
the  walks  of  life,  between  the  Army  officer  and  the  soldier  and  the 
plain  citizen  in  civil  life. 

The  Americans  who  love  their  sons,  and  don't  want  them 
forced  into  the  European  war,  have  just  as  much  right  to 
test  the  constitutionality  of  the  new  law  which  demands  hlood^ 
as  the  Americans  who  loved  their  dollars,  and  didn't  want 
to  pay  the  income  tax  of  1893,  had  to  combat  that  law. 

Those  Northern  millionaires  did  not  pay  their  income 
taxes,  pending  the  test  of  the  law.  They  got  an  injunction 
which  restrained  the  Government  from  collecting  the  tax. 

Then  when  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  declared  the  law  un- 
constitutional, the  law  was  treated  as  a  dead  letter. 

The  people  have  a  perfect  right  to  peaceably  organize  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  legal  services;  and  if  the  Judge  to 
whom  their  attorney  applies  grants  the  restraining  order,  the 
conscription  stops  in  that  case,  until  the  court  decides  the 
question. 

When  Congress,  in  obedience  to  the  U.  S.  Constitution, 
enacted  a  Fugitive  Slave  law,  the  courts  in  the  Eastern  and 
Northern  States  issued  writs  of  Habeas  Corpus,  applied  for 
in  behalf  of  the  negro  runaways. 

Will  the  courts  now  refuse  to  white  men  what  they  formerly 
granted  to  the  blacks? 

When  Congress,  or  the  States,  pass  laws  which  the  rail- 
roads do  not  consider  constitutional,  the  courts  readily  issue 
injunctions,  staying  the  law  until  the  question  of  constitution- 
ality can  be  settled. 

Will  the  courts  deny  to  natural  citizens  that  which  they 
grant  to  artificial? 

In  other  words,  is  there  a  remedy  for  dollars  and  none  for 
lives? 

It  would  be  a  preposterous  proposition  to  assert,  that  the 
IT.  S.  Courts  can  legally  negative  congressional  usurpations 
which  confiscate  profits,  but  are  powerless  to  negative  usurpa- 
tions which  practically  confiscate  lives. 


35 

If  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  has  any  higher  mission  than 
the  preservation  of  the  Constitution,  what  is  it? 

And  if  the  citizen  cannot  appeal  to  the  courts  against  arbi- 
trary infractions  of  his  guaranteed  constitutional  liberties*  then 
those  liberties  are  already  losf. 

Do  we  not  remember,  that  President  Wilson's  peace  note 
of  December  last  was  considered  so  likely  to  end  the  War, 
that  speculators  gambled  on  it? 

There  were  huge  fortunes  made,  it  was  said,  by  those  who 
had  inside  information  of  the  note,  and  the  scandal  became 
so  great  that  Congress  went  through  the  form  of  investigating 
the  "leakage." 

There  were  accusations  which  implicated  some  very  high 
people  indeed,  close  to  the  President ;  but  the  only  point  I  make 
on  it  now  is,  that  President  Wilson  wanted  to  make  peace  with 
German  ''''autocracy^''  and  German  atrocities,  six  months  ago  ! 

What  has  happened  since,  to  throw  all  the  fat  in  the  fire? 

In  the  Atlanta  Constitution  of  January  1,  1917,  a  front- 
page headline  ran — 

''''Hope  is  dwindling  that  Wilson  note  will  hasten  peacey 

''''Wilson  is  expected  to  send  another  note^ 

Therefore,  the  actual  facts  are,  that  in  January  our  Gov- 
ernment was  still  eager  to  bring  about  peace,  leaving  German 
autocracy  enthroned,  and  leaving  the  Lusitania  unavenged. 

What  happened  afterwards? 

Consider  another  extremely  important  and  undeniable  fact : 

On  January  7th  of  this  year,  our  ambassador  to  Germany, 
Hon.  James  W.  Gerard,  was  guest  of  honor  at  a  grand  ban- 
quet in  Berlin,  where  the  high  officials  of  the  German  govern- 
ment were  invited  guests,  and  where  several  speeches  were 
made  expressive  of  the  cordial  friendship  existing  between 
the  German  government  and  that  of  the  United  States. 

Think  of  it !  In  January  of  this  year,  five  months  ago, 
when  German  autocracy  was  as  autocratic  as  possible,  and  all 
the  atrocities  for  which  we  now  go  to  war  had  long  since  been 
committed. 

Bemember,  that  Mr.  Gerard  had  just  returned  to  Berlin 
from  a  visit  to  this  country,  during  which  he  had  confidential 
personal  interviews  with  President  Wilson. 

I  consider  this  Berlin  incident  so  very  significant,  in  view 
of  what  has  happened  since,  that  I  will  give  it  to  you  in  full 
as  it  appears  in  the  Galveston  Daily  News  of  Jan.  8,  1917 : 

Berlin,  by  Wireless  to  Sayville,  Jan.  7. — A  large  number  of  the 
leading  personages  of  Germany,  says  the  Overseas  News  Agency, 
were  present  at  the  dinner  given  last  night  in  honor  of  James  W, 


36 

Gerard,  the  American  ambassador  to  Germany,  by  the  American 
Association  of  Commerce  and  Trade  of  Berlin.  The  diners  were 
addressed  by  Ambassador  Gerard,  Vice  Chancellor  Helfferich,  For- 
eign 'Secretary  Zimmermann  and  Arthur  von  Gwynner,  the  director 
of  the  Deutsche  Bank,  and  in  all  the  speeches  the  cordial  relation- 
ship existing  between  the  governments  of  the  United  States  and 
Germany  were  emphasized.  Ambassador  Gerard,  who  was  likened 
by  Director  von  Gwynner  to  "the  peace  dove  of  Noah's  ark,"  is 
quoted  by  the  Overseas  News  Agency  as  saying  that  "never  since  the 
beginning  of  the  war  have  relations  between  Germany  and  the 
United  States  been  so  cordial,"  and  that  he  had  "brought  back  an 
olive  branch"  from  President  Wilson. 

Vice  Chancellor  Helfferrich  said  he  was  pleased  to  know  that 
Ambassador  Gerard  had  visited  the  United  States,  "where  he  had 
an  opportunity  of  describing  the  real  state  of  affairs  in  Germany," 
and  Foreign  Minister  Zimmermann  declared  he  "felt  sure  the  friendly 
relations  between  both  the  United  States  and  Germany,  as  enun- 
ciated by  Mr.  Gerard,  will  continue." 

Telegrams  to  President  and  Kaiser. 

A  telegram  expressing  the  "sincerest  wishes"  of  the  association 
"in  this  crucial  time"  was  forwarded  to  President  Wilson,  and  an- 
other message  was  forwarded  to  Emperor  William. 

Dr.  Helferrich,  in  his  speech,  as  quoted  by  the  Overseas  News 
Agency,  called  attention  to  the  increase  in  commerce  between  Ger- 
many and  the  United  States,  saying  that  in  the  ten  years  from  1903 
to  1913  it  had  increased  by  more  than  one  billion  marks.  The  Over- 
seas News  Agency  continues: 

"Arthur  von  Gwynner,  director  of  the  Deutsche  Banks,  com- 
pared Ambassador  Gerard  with  the  peace  dove  of  Noah's  ark,  on 
the  return  of  which  Noah  realized  that  he  had  sent  it  out  too  early, 
but,  nevertheless,  he  had  seen  the  colors  of  the  rainbow. 

"Ambassador  Gerard,  in  his  speech,  told  of  the  sympathy  in  the 
United  States  for  Germany's  charity  work.  Many  prominent  people 
had  handed  him  checks  for  the  German  Red  Cross.  On  his  return 
to  Germany,  he  said,  he  had  delivered  to  the  different  German  relief 
funds  about  400,000  marks.     Continuing,  Mr.  Gerard  said: 

Relations  Never  Better. 

"  'Never  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  have  the  relations  be- 
tween Germany  and  the  United  States  been  so  cordial  as  now.  I 
have  brought  back  an  oHve  branch  from  the  president — or  don't 
you  consider  the  president's  message  an  olive  branch? 

"  'I  personally  am  convinced  that  as  long  as  Germany's  fate  is 
directed  by  such  men  as  my  friend,  the  chancellor,  and  Dr.  Helfer- 
rich and  Dr.  Solt;  by  Admirals  von  Capelle  (minister  of  the  navy), 
Holtzendorff  (head  of  the  naval  general  staff),  and  von  Mueller 
(naval  adviser  to  the  emperor) ;  by  Generals  von  Hindenburg  (chief 
of  the  general  staff),  and  Ludenorff  (first  quartermaster  general), 
and  last,  but  not  least,  by  my  friend  Zimmermann,  the  relations 
between  the  two  countries  are  running  no  risk.' 

"Toward  the  end  of  the  evening  Dr.  Zimmermann,  who  had  been 
attending  a  conference  with  the  Austro-Hungarian  foreign  minister. 
Count  Czzernin  von  Chudenitz,  appeared  at  the  banquet.  .Addressing 
the  guests,  the  German  foreign  secretary  pointed  out  that  a  large 


37 

number  of  persons  had  supposed  that  Ambassador  would  not  return 
to  this  country  of  barbarians,  but  that  he  had  been  sure  the  ambas- 
sador would  return  in  good  health  and  with  good  intentions. 

Relations  Always  Pleasant. 

"Continuing,  Dr.  Zimmermann  said: 

"  *I  always  collaborated  with  Mr.  Ambassador  in  excellent  man- 
ner and  with  mutual  confidence,  so  that  I  feel  sure  that  the  friendly 
and  trustful  relations  between  both  countries  will  continue  in  the 
way  expressed  by  Mr.  Gerard.' 

"The  American  Association  sent  telegrams  to  Emperor  William 
and  President  Wilson.     The  telegram  to  the  president  reads: 

"  'The  American  Association  or  Commerce  and  trade  of  Berlin 
is  giving  a  dinner  to  Ambassador  Gerard,  and,  honored  by  the  pres- 
ence of  leaders  in  German  politics,  commerce  and  industry,  it  wishes 
to  express  to  the  president  of  the  United  States  its  sincerest  wishes 
in  these  crucial  times.'  " 


WAR  QUESTIONS  AND  WAR  ISSUES.    LET  US 

REASON  TOGETHER.    JUDGE  THE  NEW 

LAWS  BY  THE  SUPREME  LAW 

As  everybody  knows,  the  American  colonists  waged  a  war 
of  seven  years  to  establish  the  principle,  that  the  Englishmen 
who  colonized  the  New  World  brought  with  them,  and  were 
entitled  to  enjoy,  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  as  defined  by  the 
laws  of  the  Mother  Country? 

Is  it  not  so? 

Look  again  at  the  celebrated  set  of  resolutions  which  Pat- 
rick Henry  wrote  on  a  blank  leaf  of  his  Blackstone,  presented 
to  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses,  and  advocated  in  his  im- 
mortal speech. 

The  spirit  of  the  colonial  revolt  was,  that  the  colonists  were 
English,  and  could  not  be  arbitrarily  deprived  of  the  funda- 
mental rights  of  Englishmen. 

Again  I  ask,  is  it  not  so  ? 

Of  course  your  mind  Avill  at  once  single  out  the  principle  of 
"No  taxation  "without  representation";  but  this  principle  was 
only  one  of  many. 

Among  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  claimed  by  the  colonists, 
were  those  of  trial  by  jury,  freedom  of  speech  and  press,  the 
sacredness  of  the  home  from  searches  without  a  warrant;  the 
full  enjoyment  of  personal  liberty,  of  life,  and  of  property; 
the  right  to  keep  and  bear  arm&;  the  right  to  peacefully  as- 


38 

semble;  and  the  right  to  petition  the  government  against  ex- 
isting or  threatened  wrongs. 

One  of  the  most  important,  most  ancient,  and  best  estab- 
lished principles  of  personal  liberty  in  England  was,  that  no 
Englishman  could  he  sent  out  of  the  realm  without  his  own 
consent. 

Sir  William  Blackstone,  discussing  this  great  fundamental 
principle  in  his  Commentaries — ^the  text-book  of  legal  students 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world  —  uses  very  strong 
language. 

In  paragraph  137,  of  Book  I.,  the  learned  jurist  says,  that 
"iV<9  power  on  earth  ....  can  send  any  subject  of  Eng- 
land out  of  the  land  against  his  will;  no,  not  even  a  crim- 
inal!" 

The  words  omitted  by  me  from  the  line  are,  "except  the 
authority  of  Parliament,"  and  I  omitted  them  because,  in  Eng- 
land, the  Parliament  was — and  is — omnipotent,  not  limited  by 
any  written  Constitution. 

The  King  himself,  even  in  the  most  arbitrary  Tudor  days, 
could  not  lawfully  compel  an  Englishman  to  leave  England. 
The  royal  power  could  restrain  a  man  from  going  away,  but 
could  not  send  him  away. 

In  those  days,  soldiers  and  sailors  were  voluntary  hirelings. 
There  was  no  conscription. 

Even  during  the  long,  long  years  of  the  Napoleonic  Wars, 
lasting  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Great  Britain  never 
conscripted  a  single  soldier. 

Wellington's  victories  were  the  work  of  volunteers.  The 
French  were  driven  out  of  Portugal  and  Spain  by  volunteers. 
The  victors  at  Waterloo  were  volunteers. 

The  immortal  Six  Hundred  at  the  Battle  of  Balaclava,  were 
volunteers. 

The  conquerors  of  India,  of  the  Soudan,  of  Egypt,  and  of 
South  Africa,  were  volunteers. 

The  four  million  Englishmen,  Canadians,  and  Australians 
who  have  saved  France  and  England  from  the  conscripted 
hordes  of  ruthless  Huns,  are  gallant,  patriotic  volunteers. 

England  has  not  sent  one  single  conscript  to  the  battle-line ! 

England  now  has  a  conscript  law,  forced  upon  her  by  the 
treason  of  Catholic  priests  in  Ireland  and  Canada. 

Those  traitorous  allies  of  the  Pope  and  Kaiser,  preached 
treason  so  effectively  to  the. Catholic  French  Canadians,  and 
to  the  Catholic  Irish,  that  these  poor  priest-ridden  dupes  re- 
fused to  enlist  and  fight  for  the  salvation  of  their  country. 


39 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the  Great  War,  this  persistent 
treason  of  the  Catholic  priesthood  has  been  the  source  of  Eng- 
land's weakness. 

It  was  aggravated  by  the  conduct  of  the  Catholic  Treason- 
Societies  in  America,  which  sent  money,  arms,  and  recruits 
to  aid  the  Germans  in  their  attempted  Irish  rebellion. 

Some  of  the  Amei-ican  Catholics  were  caught  red-handed, 
and  were  justly  condemned  to  be  shot;  but  Cardinal  Gibbons, 
Tumulty,  Tammany  &  Co.,  prevailed  upon  our  Government 
to  intervene  and  save  the  condemned  traitors,  just  as  the  same 
influences  prevailed  upon  the  Government  to  save  the  traitor 
priests  condemned  by  Carranza. 

The  defection  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  and  Canada 
forced  Parliament  to  exercise  its  unlimited  power,  and  to  do 
a  thing  which  no  English  government  has  ever  done  since  the 
Feudal  Ages. 

Queen  Elizabeth  never  conscripted  a  soldier  or  a  sailor, 
although  Spain's  army  threatened  from  Holland,  and  Spain's 
Invincible  Armada  was  sailing  up  the  Channel. 

The  volunteers  rallied  to  the  country's  defense,  and  saved  it. 

During  the  long  wars  that  England  waged  against  the 
French  King,  Louis  XIV.,  no  law  of  conscription  existed. 

The  greatest  statesmen  our  race  ever  produced — men  like 
Walpole,  Chatham,  Pitt,  Fox,  Canning,  Peel,  Gladstone,  and 
D'Israeli — directed  England's  destinies  in  world-wide  wars, 
never  lost  a  single  one  of  them  (excepting  our  Revolutionary 
War),  and  never  once  resorted  to  compulsory  military  service. 

Even  when  Napoleon  had  massed  his  victorious  legions  at 
Boulogne  to  invade  England,  and  the  whole  of  Europe  almost 
held  its  breath  in  suspense,  England  never  lost  her  nerve,  and 
never  forced  a  single  man  to  the  colors. 

England's  volunteers  filled  her  armies,  and  constituted  her 
impregnable  strength. 

But  while  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  is  not  limited 
in  its  powers  by  written  terms,  and  can  therefore  legally  resort 
to  conscription,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  the 
creature  of  separate,  independent,  sovereign  States;  and  while 
this  Government  is  supreme  within  the  limits  of  the  powers 
delegated  to  it  in  writino^.  it  has  no  existence  outside  those 
limits. 

To  ascertain  what  those  limits  are,  we  simply  appeal  to 
the  written  limitations. 

It  may  have  become  heretical  to  say  this,  but  I  venture  to 
Bay  it,  nevertheless. 


40 

When  a  written  contract  prescribes  what  a  corporation 
may  do,  it  can  hardly  be  treason  if  I  ask  for  a  perusal  of  the 
contract. 

If,  after  having  read  the  Constitution,  we  differ  as  to  its 
construction,  we  can  either  agitate  against  it — as  New  Eng- 
land did  during  the  War  of  1812 — or  we  can  endeavor  to  draw 
out  of  it — as  the  Southern  States  did  in  1860 — or  we  can  go 
to  law  about  it,  as  the  Railroads  do,  when  they  disapprove 
State  and  Federal  legislation;  or  as  the  millionaires  did,  in 
1893,  when  they  indignantly  resented  the  idea  of  allowing  a 
Democratic  Congress  tax  their  incomes. 

In  other  words,  when  we  challenge  the  right  of  Congress 
to  pass  a  certain  law,  it  is  our  privilege  to  appeal  to  the  Ju- 
dicial branch  of  the  Government. 

We  can  lawfully  ask  the  judges  to  construe  the  contract, 
and  to  decide  whether  or  not  Congress  has  exceeded  its  powers. 

In  quite  a  few  instances.  Congress  has  inadvertently  made 
an  ass  of  itself,  by  undertaking  to  do  what  it  had  no  authority 
to  do. 

The  Judiciary  has  been  painfully  constrained  to  remind 
Congress  of  these  instances  of  mental  aberration,  and  to  run 
the  Judicial  blue  pencil  through  these  asinine  "laws." 

Of  course  you  will  understand,  that  in  all  these  cases. 
Congress  has  stoutly  maintained  that  it  acted  correctly,  and 
that  the  Judges  were  the  mules;  but  it  is  not  for  me — a  mere 
worm  of  the  dust — to  say  who  was  accurate  in  describing  the 
other  branch  of  the  Government. 

All  that  /  can  be  expected  to  be  certain  of  is,  that  the 
Judiciary  blue-penciled  the  laws,  and  the  laws  went  to  limbo. 

This,  as  a  concrete  fact,  left  the  Judges  very  much  on  top. 

Only  a  few  days  ago,  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  had  to 
diasten  Congress  in  the  matter  of  punishing  a  citizen  for  con- 
tempt; and  the  whole  country  listened  with  approval,  when 
that  supreme  tribunal  said  to  Congress,  in  substance — 

"In  your  pursuit  of  District  Attorney  Marshall,  you  have 
exceeded  your  powers,  and  your  proceedings  are  null  and  void : 
therefore,  they  are  quashed  P^ 

Not  only  was  jthe  Income-tax  law  of  1893  set  aside  as  un- 
constitutional, but  the  Sherman  anti-Trust  act  was  virtually 
annulled,  and  the  Pure  Food  law  radically  changed. 

At  this  very  time,  the  State  of  Georgia  lies  under  a  mandate 
from  the  U.  S.  Court  in  Atlanta,  which  forbids  her  to  lower 
her  freight  rates. 


41 

Everybody  remembers  how  Judge  Jones  was  constantly 
shackling  Alabama  with  injunctions.  _  .    ,      ,  .        j 

Nobody  can  have  forgotten  how  Judge  Pntchard  issued 
judicial  orders  to  the  Stat«  of  North  Cafolma.         .  ^.  ^  ^  . 

Ever  since  the  famous  "Slaughter  House"  cases  of  St.  Louis, 
the  Judiciary  has  taken  jurisdiction  over  petitions,  duly  pre- 
sented, which  raise  the  question — 

Is  tUs  law  constitutional?  ^  .,       ,  _ 

Doesn't  every  one  remember  that  the  Railroad  managers 
threatened  to  disobey  the  Adamson  8-hour  law,  until  the  bu- 
reme  Court  could  pass  on  it?  x         u 

Didn't  the  daily  papers  state  that  the  Government  would 
actively  endeavor  to  have  the  Court  give  right  of  way  to  the 
case,  with  a  view  to  a  speedy  decision? 

All  these  matters  are  within  common  knowledge,  and  they 
are  so  recent  that  I  am  amazed  at  the  threats  being  thrown 
out,  with  the  apparent  purpose  of  intimidating  all  citizens 
who  are  inclined  to  appeal  to  the  Judiciary  agamst  the  Con- 
scription Act.  -1  +• 

Such  threats  are  not  only  an  outrage  against  the  consti- 
tutional rights  of  citizenship,  but  are  an  affront  to  that  branch 
of  the  Government  whose  supreme  prerogative  and  duty  it  is 
to  protect  the  citizen  from  Congressional  usurpation. 

If  the  citizen  may  no  longer  fly  to  the  City  of  Refuge,  then 
raze  the  City,  and  sow  salt  in  its  ashes ! 

(1.)  Does  the  Constitution  give  to  Congress  the  power  to 
raise  an  army  by  compulsion? 

(2.)  Does  the  Constitution  give  Congress  the  authority 
to  make  war-appropriations  extending  over  a  period  of  30 

years?  u     u  i  -p  i 

Our  forefathers  were  so  well-informed  as  to  the  baletul 
consequences  of  standing  armies,  so  keenly  alive  to  the  fatal 
results  of  standing  armies  upon  personal  liberty  and  civil 
rights  that  any  proposal,  in  the  Constitutional  Convention, 
to  clothe  the  Federal  Government  with  the  royal  prerogative 
of  maintaining  troops,  would  have  been  rejected  with  universal 
horror  and  indignation. 

Every  student  of  the  long  struggle  of  Englishmen  to  as- 
sert the  rights  of  man,  against  the  tyrannical  abuses  of  royal 
power,  knows,  that  the  last  reliance  of  arbitrary  kings  was, 
the  blind  obedience  of  professional  soldiers,  kept  in  the  king  s 
pay,  and  educated  to  scorn  the  civilian  population. 

The  military  caste,  like  the  hierarchal  priestly  caste,  was 


42 

always  undemocratic,  was  always  ready  to  massacre  the  people, 
and  was  therefore  always  the  surest  prop  of  a  despotic  throne. 
Therefore,  the  Sages  who  met  at  Philadelphia,  in  1787, 
to  frame  the  writte% contract,  which  was  to  fix  the  relations 
between  the  States  and  the  proposed  Federal  Government, 
were  most  careful  to  safeguard  the  newly- won  American  inde- 
pendence against  the  old  foe  of  human  liberty,  to-wit — the 
standing  army  in  time  of  peace. 

The  States  were  to  raise  and  control  the  militia,  and  the 
Federal  Government  was  empowered  to  call  for  and  use  this 
militia  in  three  cases,  only;  to  repel  invasion,  to  suppress  in- 
surrection, and  to  execute  the  laws. 

To  render  it  doubly  certain  that  a  standing  army  should 
not  be  established  under  some  subterfuge,  the  Fathers  put  a 
provision  in  the  Constitution  limiting  war  appropriations  to 
two  years. 

An  army  requires  much  money  to  support  it,  and  therefore 
the  makers  of  the  Federal  Government  expressly  denied  to 
Congress  the  power  to  furnish  money  enough  to  maintain  an 
army  for  more  than  two  years! 

Think  of  that  a  moment,  and  you  will  begin  to  realize  its 
tremendous  significance. 

Congress  has  to  give  an  axicount  of  its  stewardship,  every 
two  years:  all  members  of  the  House,  and  one-third  of  the 
Senate,  have  to  go  home  and  face  the  people. 

Every  two  years,  the  people  were  to  have  the  power  to 
discharge  the  unfaithful  public  servant,  who  had  gone  to  Wash- 
ington and  betrayed  the  democracy  of  his  district. 

With  such  a  biennial  power  put  into  the  keeping  of  a  vigi- 
lant people,  can  you  not  see  how  impossible  it  was — as  our 
Fathers  thought— for  an  aristocracy,  or  a  plutocracy,  or  an 
autocracy,  or  an  oligarchy  to  get  money  enough  for  the  main- 
tenance of  a  permanent  standing  army? 

If  they  had  to  ask  Congress  for  it,  every  two  years,  and 
Congress  had  to  answer  to  the  people  every  two  years,  there 
was  no  chance  to  sneak  a  standing  army  on  to  the  national 
payroll,  in  defiance  of  the  people. 

Every  two  years,  the  people  could  apply  the  remedy,  by 
defeating  the  Congressmen  who  had  voted  money  to  the  stand- 
ing army. 

But  if  Congress  raises,  by  huge  issues  of  bonds,  enough 
money  to  support  the  standing  army  10  years,  or  20  years, 
what  remedy  can  the  people  apply? 

There  is  the  plain  letter  of  the  Constitution  limiting  the 


43 

power  of  Congress  to  two-year  appropriations;  yet  the  whole 
country  is  being  canvassed,  by  the  most  extraordinary  meth- 
ods, in  the  interest  of  a  war-loan  of  two  thousand  million  dol- 
lars, extending  over  a  period  of  30  years! 

Is  it  lawful  to  violate  the  law  ? 

Is  it  treason  to  ask  the  question  ? 

As  to  the  forcible  seizure  of  men  for  military  service,  it  is 
abhorrent  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  democracy,  and  re- 
pugnant to  the  Constitution  of  the  Union. 

Democracy  and  compulsion  are  not  compatible,  the  one 
with  th"6*  other.  Where  one  exists,  the  other  must  expire. 
Where  one  dwells,  the  other  must  vacate. 

The  very  essence  and  spirit  of  democracy  is,  volunteer  ac- 
tion. It  is  the  volmitary  adoption  of  a  system  in  which  a 
mhwrity  agree  voluntarily  to  submit,  even  to  what  they  do 
not  approve,  when  a  majority  adopt  it,  hy  those  free  and  vol- 
untary methods  of  voting  which  they  originally  agreed  on, 
and  within  the  limits  of  the  agreement. 

In  construing  a  treaty  between  nations,  or  a  constitution 
made  for  a  government,  common  sense  dictates  that  words 
and  phrases  should  be  given  the  meaning  which  they  bore  at 
that  time. 

For  example,  if  we  were  construing  a  feudal  compact  in 
which  the  word,  "villein"  occurred,  we  would  not  be  author- 
ized to  say  that  it  meant  a  scoundrel^  as  the  word  now  does: 
we  would  have  to  say  it  meant,  a  peasant,  bound  to  his  lord 
and  to  the  land  of  his  lord,  hy  feudal  law. 

So,  when  we  come  upon  the  brief  sentence  in  the  U.  S. 
Constitution  which  gives  to  Congress  the  authority  "to  raise 
armies,"  we  must  seek  for  its  meaning  by  the  light  of  the 
English  custom,  and  common  understanding. 

How  had  English  armies  been  "raised,"  ever  since  the  era 
of  Feudalism? 

What  has  been  ths  universal  custom,  for  centuries?  What 
had  been  the  only  meaning  attached  to  the  words,  "to  raise 
armies"  ? 

The  answer  deals  a  stunning  blow  to  those  who  contend  that 
General  Washington,  Benjamin  Franklin,  James  Madison, 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  Edmund  Randolph,  Luther  Martin  and 
the  other  makers  of  the  Constitution  meant  conscription. 

The  invariable  and  immemorial  custom  of  England  had 
been,  to  "raise  armies,"  by  hiring  volimteers.  This  custom  was 
not  confined  to  England,  but  was  common  to  all  Europe, 


44 

Prussia  was  the  first  State  which  adopted  forced  service 
in  the  army;  and  Prussia  did  not  begin  the  infernal  system 
until  the  18th  century,  when  the  half-crazy  father  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great  became  the  Father  of  Prussian  Militarism. 

Therefore,  by  the  rational  and  customary  rules  of  construc- 
tion, the  words  "to  raise  armies,"  must  be  held  to  mean  the 
same  as  if  the  sentence  read — 

"To  raise  armies  in  the  same  manner  that  armies  have 
been  raised  in  the  Mother  Country  for  the  last  several  hundred 
years" ;  that  is,  hy  securing  voluntary  enlistments. 

Every  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  literature  of  the  18th 
and  19th  centuries,  remembers  the  recruiting  sergeant  and  the 
King's  shilling.  The  sergeant  sought  out  idle  fellows  at  tav- 
erns and  other  places,  wheedled  them  with  blarney,  plied  them 
with  drink,  prevailed  upon  them  to  accept  the  King's  shilling, 
and  the  recruit  was  hooked.  Of  course,  this  does  not  apply 
to  the  great  bulk  of  the  army,  for  it  was  made  up  of  patriots 
who  had  rushed  to  the  colors,  at  the  tap  of  the  drum,  when 
the  needs  of  the  country  called. 

If  Congress  can  forcibly  take  a  million  men  for  military 
service,  for  one  year,  it  can  as  legally  take  ten  millions,  for 
ten  years. 

//  Congress  can  legally  deprive  your  hoy  of  his  liberty 
for  one  yeai\  it  can  legally  condemn  him  to  the  army,  for  life. 

A  volunteer  recruit  is  bound  by  the  terms  of  enlistment; 
and  he  may  be  sent  to  Canada,  Mexico,  the  Philippines,  or  to 
Terra  del  Fuego;  but  no  citizen  can  be  legally  conscripted, 
and  forced  to  bear  arms,  outside  the  United  States. 

Such  a  thing  is  foreign  to  the  very  spirit  of  democracy, 
and  to  the  nature  of  our  Government. 

If  Congress  is  supreme  in  the  matter,  then  Congress  is 
vested  with  a  sovereignty  the  States  never  had,  and  which  the 
King  of  England  never  had. 

If  Congress  possesses  this  supreme  despotic  power,  where 
did  Congress  get  it? 

The  States  never  possessed  despotic  powers,  because  the 
States  were  democracies,  not  despotisms. 

In  each  State,  the  people  limited  the  power  of  government 
by  written  instrument ;  and  the  power  to  annul  this  instrument 
and  make  a  new  one,  still  remains  with  the  people  of  each 
State. 

The  States,  in  their  turn,  limited  the  power  of  the  Central 
Government  which  they  voluntarily  created;  and  the  power 


45 

to  amend  the  written  instrument,  which  creates  it  and  limits 
its  authority,  was  expressly  reserved  to  the  States. 

As  all  men  know,  this  reserved  power  of  revising  the  writ- 
ten instrument,  and  adding  to  it,  for  the  purpose  of  making  it 
plainer,  or  of  extending  its  scope,  has  been  exercised,  again 
and  again. 

Consequently,  all  the  facts  and  all  the  reasoning  go  to  show, 
that  the  makers  of  the  Government  never  intended  to  give 
Congress  the  terrible  power  to  destroy  our  republican  form  of 
government  by  means  of  a  standing  army,  raised  hy  compul- 
sion^ maintained  by  enormous  appropriations  extending  over  a 
period  of  more  than  two  years^  and  so  revolutionized  that  the 
Federal  Government  is  in  supreme  command,  all  the  tim^. 

If  Congi-ess  is  allowed  thus  to  illegally  combine  the  mighty 
forces  of  purse  and  sword,  then,  it's  a  long  Farewell  to  the 
liberties  for  which  your  ancestors  fought  and  died,  in  count- 
less struggles  against  the  damnable  partnership  of  Pope  and 
King. 

As  reported  by  the  International  News  Service  of  May 
30th,  President  Wilson  said,  in  his  Memorial  address  at  Ar- 
lington : 

"In  the  providence  of  God,  America  will  have  an  opportunity 
to  show  that  she  was  born  to  serve  mankind." 

"We  are  saying  to  all  mankind  that  we  did  not  set  this  Govern- 
ment up  in  order  that  we  might  have  a  selfish  and  separate  liberty. 
We  are  now  ready  to  come  to  your  assistance  and  fight  out  upon 
fields  of  the  world  the  cause  of  human  liberty.  In  this  thing,  Amer- 
ica attains  her  full  dignity  and  full  fruition  of  her  great  purpose." 

If  you  can  filter  this  sentimental  moonshine  into  something 
.tangible  and  practical,  you  are  gifted  with  more  grey  matter 
than  God  gave  to  me. 

If  that  sort  of  talk  means  anything  at  all,  it  means,  that, 
after  we  shall  have  rectified  governmental  affairs  in  Eu- 
rope, we  must  next  turn  our  Quixotic  attention  to  Asia,  and 
then  to  Africa,  and  then  to  Oceanica :  and  after  we  shall  have 
remodelled  the  internal  concerns  of  India,  Persia,  Turkey, 
Afghanistan,  China,  Japan,  and  a  few  other  countries  where 
conditions  are  not  so  ideal  as  they  are  in  this  Republic — this 
Eepublic  where  the  cats  and  dogs  of  the  beneficiaries  of  Special 
Privilege  are  pampered  aristocrats,  while  the  masses  who 
really  perform  the  toil  which  produces  wealth  are  sunk  in 
such  despair  that  starvation  stalks  among  millions — when,  I 
say,  we  shall  have  finished  our  circuit  of  Creation,  as  universal 
redressers  of  national  wrongs,  we  may  at  length  be  content 


40 

to  come  home,  and  stay  there,  and  attend  to  our  own  business. 
Continuing  his  sentimental  outpouring  of  verbal  moon- 
shine, the  President  said — 

"We  have  said  in  the  beginning  that  we  planted  this  great  Gov- 
ernment that  men  who  wished  freedom  might  have  a  place  of  refuge 
and  a  place  where  their  hope  could  be  realized,  and  now,  having 
established  such  a  Government,  having  preserved  such  a  Govern- 
ment, having  vindicated  the  power  of  such  a  Government,  we  are 
saying  to  all  mankind:  'We  did  not  set  this  Government  up  in 
order  that  we  might  have  a  selfish  and  separate  liberty,  for  we  are 
now  readj'  to  come  to  your  assistance  and  fight  out  on  the  field  of 
the  world  the  cause  of  human  liberty.'  In  this  thing  America  at- 
tains her  full  dignity  and  the  full  fruition  of  her  great  purpose. 

"No  man  can  be  glad  that  such  things  have  Tiappened  as  we 
have  witnessed  in  these  last  fateful  years,  but  perhaps  it  may  be 
permitted  to  us  to  be  glad  that  we  have  an  opportunity  to  show 
the  principles  that  we  profess  to  be  living  principles,  that  live  in 
our  hearts  and  to  have  a  chance  by  the  pouring  out  of  our  blood  and 
treasure  to  vindicate  the  thing  which  we  have  said  we  wished  to  do." 

"Pouring  out  our  blood  and  treasure,''  to  demonstrate  the 
glorious  fact  that  our  Fathers  did  not  establish  this  Govern- 
ment for  themselves  and  their  posterity — as  they  said  they  did 
— but  established  it,  in  order  that  Professor  Woodrow  Wilson 
might  have  a  sort  of  international  tripod,  which  he  could 
periodically  mount,  and  from  which  he  could  deliver  such 
oracular  and  meaningless  utterances  as  wp.re  never  before  heard 
among  sane  moderns. 

The  idea  that  our  Constitution  and  our  Government  were 
created  by  Washington,  Madison,  Franklin,  and  Hamilton  for 
the  purpose  of  universal  interference  with  the  forms  of  gov- 
ernment of  all  the  rest  of  mankind,  is  the  craziest  notion  that 
has  entered  anybody's  head,  since  President  Wilson  said  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  too  proud  and  too  right  to  fight. 

And  the  fact  which  fairly  dumbfounds  us  is,  that  it  has 
only  been  six  months  since  this  same  Professor  Woodrow  Wil- 
son was  asking  all  the  European  belligerents  to  explain  what 
they  were  fighting  about;  and  was  benevolently  beseeching 
them  to  compose  their  differences  "without  victory  for  either 
side.'' 

It  simply  stupefies  us  to  recall,  that  it  has  only  been  six 
months,  since  the  Professor  was  sweetly  assuring  the  Kaiser, 
through  Ambassador  Gerard,  of  his  distinguished  considera- 
tion and  cordial  regards! 

In  the  Berlin  speech  of  Ambassador  Gerard,  the  German 
autocracy  was  warmly  assured  that,  so  long  as  Gerard's 
"friends"  Bethman-Hollweg,  Zimmermann,  Ludendorff,  Hin- 
denburg,  Von  Tirpitz,  &c.,  remained  in  power,  there  would  be 


47 

no  rupture  between  the  German  autocracy  and  the  American 
democracy. 

Alas,  for  the  fallibility  of  ambassadorial  prophets! 

Mr.  Gerard's  "friends"  are  still  in  office  in  Berlin.  Chan- 
cellor Bethman-Hollweg  is  the  same  old  seven  and  six.  Dr. 
Zimmermann  presides  at  the  Foreign  Office,  as  usual :  Luden- 
dorif,  and  Hindenburg,  and  Von  Tirpitz  have  undergone  no 
observ^able  alteration :  the  Kaiser  is  still  confident  that  he  is  the 
junior  partner  of  the  Almighty;  and  German  atrocities  are 
not  a  whit  more  atrocious  than  they  had  constantly  and  devil- 
ishly been  for  two  years,  'before  Mr.  Ambassador  Gerard  as- 
sured his  atrocious  German  "friends"  that,  if  they  remained 
in  office,  there  would  be  no  disturbance  of  the  friendly  relations 
between  German  autocracy  and  American  democracy. 

Mr.  Ambassador  Gerard,  speaking  to  his  official  German 
"frien.ds,"  on  the  night  of  January  7th,  1917,  in  Berlin,  said — 

"Never  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  have  the  relations  be- 
tween Germany  and  the  United  States  been  so  cordial  as  now.  I  have 
brought  back  an  olive  branch  from  the  president — or  don't  you  con- 
sider the  president's  message  an  olive  branch? 

"I  personally  am  convinced  that  as  long  as  Germany's  fate  is 
directed  by  such  men  as  my  friend,  the  chancellor,  and  Dr.  Helfer- 
rich  and  Dr.  Sbolf;  by  Admirals  von  Capelle  (minister  of  the  navy), 
Holtzendorff  (head  of  the  naval  general  staff)  and  von  Mueller 
(naval  adviser  to  the  emperor),  by  Generals  von  Hindenburg  (chief 
of  the  general  staff),  and  Ludenorff  (first  quartermaster  general), 
and  last,  but  not  least,  by  my  friend  Zimmermann,  the  relations  be- 
t^veen  the  two  countries  are  running  no  risk." 

"Germany's  fate  is"  still  "directed  by  my  friend  the  Chan- 
cellor." 

Germany's  fate  is  still  directed  "last,  but  not  least,  by  my 
friend  Zimmermann." 

But  Where's  the  olive  branch  ? 

"/  hxLve  brought  you  back  an  olive  branch  from  the  Presi- 
dent.'''' 

An  olive  branch  in  January,  of  this  year,  six  months  ago. 

An  olive  branch,  after  all  the  atrocities  of  the  autocracies. 

An  olive  branch,  after  the  sinking  of  American  vessels, 
and  the  murder  of  American  sailors ! 

An  olive  branch,  after  the  massacre  of  119  American  men, 
women  and  children  on  the  Lusitanid! 

An  olive  branch,  after  the  atrocious  sinking  of  the  Sussex^ 
the  Arabic,  the  dropping  of  bombs  upon  hospitals,  the  mur- 
ders of  non-combatants  in  unfortified  towns,  the  dynamiting 


48 

of  American  munition  plants  and  the  assassination,  in  cold 
blood,  of  hundreds  of  innocent  American  bread-winners. 

An  olive  branch  from  the  President  of  the  United  States 
to  the  Emperor  William,  whose  autocracy  has  suddenly  be- 
come so  intolerable,  that  President  Wilson  must  sweep  aside 
all  his  previous  speeches,  obliterate  the  Constitution  of  his 
country,  and  dedicate  this  Republic  to  the  imheard  of  mission, 
of  world-regeneration! 

To  what  purpose  did  its  makers  dedicate  this  Government  ? 

They  soberly  and  practically  declared,  in  the  familiar  Pre- 
amble to  the  Constitution,  that  tJieir  purpose  in  creating  "the 
Federal  Government  was — 

"To  form  a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
to  ourselves  and  our  posterity.'''' 

That's  sane!  That's  practical.  And  that's  all  that  the 
Constitution  authorizes  Congress  and  the  President  to  under- 
take. 

When  they  commit  themselves  to  any  other  purposes,  they 
are  acting  outside  the  law  which  brought  them  into  existence. 

When  they  employ  the  vast  powers  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment for  any  other  objects  than  those  stated  by  the  Makers 
of  the  Constitution,  their  conduct  is  usurpatory. 

When  they  embark  upon  chimerical,  visionary,  Quixotic 
designs  of  carrying  "liberty,"  by  "blood  and  treasure,"  to  the 
balance  of  the  world,  they  abandon  the  known  channels  of 
navigation,  they  throw  down  the  chart  and  the  compass;  and 
they  recklessly  drive  the  ship  of  state  into  a  shoreless  sea, 
without  the  slightest  assurance  that  any  safe  mooring  will  ever 
be  made  again. 

The  President  now  says  that  "we  did  not  set  this  Govern- 
ment up,  in  order  that  we  might  have  a  selfish  and  separate 
liberty." 

The  Sages  who  made  the  government  declared,  that  they 
did  set  it  up,  for  that  very  purpose. 

They  were  creating  a  government  for  us,  and  for  our  own 
country — selfishly  and  separately.    , 

No  other  government  ever  was  created  for  any  other  pur- 
pose. 

Every  government  is  necessarily  selfish  and  separate. 

Ireland  is  howling  for  one,  right  now,  and  this  very  Con- 
gress went  out  of  its  way  to  back  her  in  it. 


49 

Russia  recently  tried  her  hand  at  one,  and  we  are  backing 
Russia. 

England's  government  is  for  England  and  the  English: 
France's  government  is  for  France  and  the  French :  the  Amer- 
ican government  was  sanely  intended  for  America  and  the 
Americans. 

Any  other  idea,  is  sheer  sentimentalism. 

It  will  not  bear  the  slightest  test  of  reason;  and  the  country 
would  have  laughed  it  to  scorn,  six  months  ago. 

The  President  himself  scorned  if,  last  Fall! 

Addressing  a  crowd  at  his  New  Jersey  home  —  Shadow 
Lawn  —  in  October,  he  warned  the  American  people  against 
changing  our  foreign  policy,  and  he  was  universally  under- 
stood to  be  referring  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  others  of  the  same 
way  of  thinking,  who  were  then  clamoring  for  war. 

President  Wilson  then  said — 

Shadow  Lawn,  N.  J.,  Oct.  14. — The  American  people  have  no 
disposition  to  "exchange  a  handsome  certainty  for  an  unhandsome 
uncertainty,"  President  Wilson  declared  this  afternoon  from  the 
porch  of  the  autumn  White  House  in  a  speech  more  sulphuric  than 
any  he  has  thus  far  hurled  at  republicanism  and  its  leaders. 

His  talk  warned  against  the  sinister  influences  of  campaign 
bosses  and  of  the  dangers  of  changing  the  American  foreign  policy 
now. 

Compare  the  rational  tone  of  this  sort  of  talk — luhich  satis- 
fied the  American  people  so  thoroughly  that  they  gave  Mr. 
Wilson  a  second  term — with  the  vague,  dreamy,  fantastic  vis- 
ions which  have  since  taken  possession  of  Professor  Wilson's 
mind,  and  you  cannot  fail  to  be  deeply  impressed  by  the  irre- 
concilable difference  between  the  two  positions. 

In  October,  he  was  rebuking  Roosevelt,  Lodge,  Hughes, 
and  Company;  and  contending,  substantially,  that  we  must 
stay  on  the  safe  side,  according  to  the  time-honored  policy  of 
our  (jrovernmeut. 

Now,  however,  he  completely  changes  his  position.  In 
fact,  he  exactly,  reverses  it. 

He  now  demands  enormous  sums  of  money,  enormous  num- 
bers of  conscripted  soldiers,  and  enormous  personal  powers, 
in  order  that  he  may  "exchange  a  handsome  certainty  for  an 
unhandsome  uncertainty":  and  he  now  says,  in  effect,  that  our 
Fathers  did  not  know  what  they  were  talking  about,  when 
they  solemnly  declared,  that  they  established  this  Government 
for  '•''ourselves  and  our  posterity.'''' 

By  some  esoteric  mental  process — veiled  from  the  eye  of  the 


50 

average  biped;  a  mysterious  process,  inexplicable,  inscrutable, 
elusive  to  ordinary  minds,  and  evidently  set  apart  for  the  rap- 
turous approval  of  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect — 
Professor  Woodrow  Wilson  has  hypnotized  himself  into  the 
belief,  that  George  Washington,  James  Madison,  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  the  rest  of  the  Fathers,  were  not  incubating  at 
Philadelphia,  to  hatch  out  "a  more  perfect  union'''  of  the 
American  States;  but  were  intellectually  sailing  through  the 
iridescent  realms  of  transcendentalism,  in  search  of  an  ideal 
government  for  "mankind" — a  sort  of  international  Don 
Quixote,  commissioned  to  rove  throughout  the  universe,  tilting 
against  all  the  windmills  in  creation ;  and  setting  up  an  Inter- 
national Court,  to  pass  upon  international  affairs,  and  to  en- 
force its  judgments  upon  all  recalcitrant  peoples  and  autocra- 
cies, by  means  of  American  armies,  raised  hy  compulsion. 

The  Jefl'ersonian  believed  and  said,  that  our  Government 
should  never  have  tolerated  German  atrocities  as  long  as  it  did. 
Bernstorff'  should  have  been  dismissed  when  he  inserted  those 
insolent  advertisements  in  the  papers,  warning  our  citizens 
not  to  exercise  their  legal  right  of  taking  passage  on  the  Lusi- 
tania. 

The  Germans  should  not  have  been  left  in  charge  of  the 
wireless  stations  in  New  Jersey  and  New  York. 

Those  stations  rendered  vast  services  to  Germany,  all  the 
time  she  was  butchering  our  citizens  on  the  sea  and  upon  our 
own  soil. 

More  than  two  years  ago,  we  should  have  broken  with  Ger- 
many, and  gone  into  the  War  with  our  fleet. 

It  was  on  the  ocean  that  Germany  had  made  war  upon  our 
rights,  and  surely  our  magnificent  fleet  is  able  to  have  made 
good  our  vengeance  upon  the  murderous,  lawless  U-boats  of 
Germany. 

If  Col.  Roosevelt  and  200,000  Americans  wanted  to  fight 
in  Europe,  as  volunteers,  I  would  have  said,  "Go!" 

But  beyond  this,  I  never  even  dreamed  of  going;  and  the 
very  idea  of  forcing  young  men  into  the  Army  for  the  purpose 
of  having  them  take  part  in  the  land-fighting  in  France,  or 
elsewhere  in  Europe,  is  abhorrent  to  all  my  life-long  concep- 
tidfis  of  democratic  principles  and  constitutional  liberty. 

Deliberately  and  without  passion,  I  declare  that,  in  my 
judgment,  the  present  policy  of  the  President  and  Congress  is 
far  more  fatal  to  our  republic,  than  any  of  the  legislation  of 
the  Black  Republican,  immediately  following  the  War  be- 
tween the  States. 


51 

If  it  were  so  that  I  could,  I  would  dearly  lore  to  argue 
the  unconstitutionality  of  the  Conscription  law,  before  such 
a  good  constitutional  lawyer  as  Judge  Emory  Speer. 

The  very  first  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  declares  that — 

''Congress  shall  make  no  law  ....  abridging  .  .  .  .  the 
right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble  and  to  petition  the 
government  for  a  redress  of  grievances.^'' 

Parallel  with  this  constitutional  right,  runs  the  right  of 
appeal  to  the  U.  S.  Courts,  whenever  the  citifen  believes  that 
Congress  has  invaded  his  constitutional  rights. 

If  our  people  feel  aggrieved  by  this  revolutionary  Con- 
script law,  with  its  30-year  war  appropriation,  they  can  peace- 
ably assemble  and  petition  the  government  for  the  redress  of 
the  grievance. 

This  is  an  old  English  right,  and  it  has  often  caused  the 
government  of  England  to  halt. 

If  the  people  see  fit  to  exercise  this  constitutional  right, 
and  should  peaceably  assemble,  not  only  to  petition  the  govern- 
ment against  this  monstrous  grievance,  but  to  employ  lawyers 
to  bring  test  cases  in  the  Federal  Courts,  /  hereby  volunteer  my 
services,  free  of  charge. 

In  such  an  event,  I  would  only  ask  that  a  sufficient  fund  be 
raised  to  engage  the  services  of  younger  attorneys,  who  would 
relieve  me  of  the  manual  labor  and  the  drudgery  of  the  case. 

I  am  perfectly  willmg  to  make  the  leading  argument  be- 
fore Judge  Speer,  and  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States. 

Against  this  unsane  and  unconstitutional  experiment,  an- 
nounced by  the  President  in  his  Memorial  address,  the  people 
should  protest,  by  mass-meetings  and  petitions,  which  the 
Constitution  authorizes,  for  just  such  purposes. 

It  was  in  February,  1915,"  that  Germany  declared  her  block- 
ade of  the  British  Isles :  it  was  soon  afterwards  that  President 
Wilson  published  the  bold,  legal,  and  patriotic  response  to 
Germany's  insolent  challenge. 

That  response  contained  the  well-known  threat,  to  hold  "to 
strict  accountability"  any  aggressor  who  destroyed  American 
property  or  lives,  in  violation  of  the  Law  of  Nations. 

Mr.  Bryan,  Secretary  of  State,  called  at  the  office  of  the 
Austrian  ambassador.  Dr.  Dumba,  and  told  him,  that  Germany 
and  her  allies  need  not  take  the  President's  note  seriously. 

Our  Secretary  of  State  assured  Dr.  Dumba  that  the  pub- 


52 

lished  paper,  which  he  had  officially  signed,  did  not  mean  what 
it  said,  but  was  only  meant  for  "home  consumption." 

That  is  to  say.  Secretary  Bryan  told  Ambassador  Dumba, 
that  he  and  the  President  had  concocted  the  "strict  account- 
ability" note,  to  bamboozle  the  American  people ! 

Are  these  fearful  facts  denied? 

No:  they  are  admitted. 

Mr.  Bryan  confessed  his  part  in  the  affaii",  during  last 
year's  campaign;  and  he  publich^  defended  his  own  duplicity, 
by  alleging  that  the  President  was  a  party  to  it. 

Did  the  President  deny  Mr.  Bryan's  astounding  statement? 

He  did  not. 

After  this  episode — unparalleled  in  American  history — be- 
gan the  long-drawn-out  "interchange  of  letters,  between  the 
President  and  the  German  Government,  all  of  which  pivoted 
upon  the  demand,  that  Germany  should  conduct  her  maritime 
warfare  in  accordance  with  the  established  canons  of  Interna- 
tional law. 

As  everybody  remembers,  that  prolonged  correspondence 
finally  became  a  standing  joke. 

But  when  the  campaign  opened  last  year,  the  Democratic 
managers  published  a  book  in  which  they  said,  that  Germany 
had  at  length  "disavowed"  the  sinking  of  the  Lvsitania. 

Was  the  statement  true? 

No :  it  was  not  true. 

It  was  merely  another  publication  for  "home  consumption." 

Then  in  December,  came  the  President's  "Peace  paper," 
calling  upon  all  the  European  fighters  to  explain  what  they 
were  fighting  about,  and  to  definitely  state  the  terms  upon 
which  they  would  make  peace. 

This  peace-maker  effort  of  the  President  extended  into 
January  of  this  year,  and  finally  collapsed  when  Germany,  re- 
fusing to  define  her  terms,  made  the  counter  proposal  for  a  gen- 
eral Conference  of  the  Powers. 

Have  I  not  stated  the  case  fairly  and  Ojccv/rately? 

If  not,  correct  me  ! 

What,  then,  is  the  literal  truth? 

The  undeniable,  absolute  truth  is,  that,  so  late  as  fve 
months  ago^  President  Wilson  wanted  to  make  peace  "without 
victory."  and  without  annexations,  leaving  every  European 
to  its  own  government,  and  leaving  all  German  atrocities  un- 
avenged L 

Suddenly,  he  changes;  and  when  he  does  change,  he  doesn't 
stop  where  The  Jeffersonian  and  so  many  others  had  so  long 
wanted  him  to  go,'  but  he  passes  the  station  of  defensive  war- 


53 

fare;  passes  the  station  of  setting  our  feet  to  combat  the  Ger- 
man vessels;  and  even  passes  the  stage  of  volunteers  for  service 
abroad. 

When  the  President  does  change,  he  flies  to  the  other  ex- 
treme; and  after  having  been  eager,  in  February ,  to  make 
peace  with  Germany,  leaving  everything  in  statu  quo,  he  com- 
mits himself,  in  March,  to  the  present  programme  of  conscHpt- 
ing  a  mighty  host  of  young  men,  and  forcing  them,  to  fight  the 
battles  of  Europe,  upon  the  idea  that  our  forefathers  did  not 
set  up  this  Government  "in  order  that  we  might  have  a  selfish 
and  separate  liberty." 

With  almost  incredible  extravagance  of  language,  the 
President  now  says,  that  it  is  our  national  mission  to  tell 
"mankind''  that,  "we  are  now  ready  to  come  to  your  assist- 
ance, and  fight  out,  upo?i  the  fields  of  the  world,  the  cause  of 
human  liberty." 

The  President  is  thus  reported  in  all  the  Northern  papers, 
as  well  as  by  the  International  News  Service. 

Accordingly,  when  the  American  hosts  —  forcibly  drawn 
from  our  fields,  mills,  mines,  stores,  banks,  shops,  and  offices  — 
shall  have  smashed  autocracy  in  Central  Europe,  it  will  be 
their  high,  chivalric,  and  constitutional  duty  to  at  once  pull 
Japan  off  China, 

Having  carried  "liberty"  to  the  Germans,  we  must  not  fail 
to  carry  it  to  the  Chinks. 

And  having  freed  the  Chinks  from  the  Japs,  our  high,  chiv- 
alric mission  will  imperatively  demand,  that  we  drive  England 
out  of  Egypt,  India,  Ceylon,  Burmah,  and  a  few  other  little 
patches  of  earth  that  she  has  "benevolently  assimilated." 

"We  did  not  set  up  this  Government  in  order  that  we  might 
have  a  selfish  and  separate  liberty." 

If  that  amazing  statement  is  true,  there  must  be  some  way 
of  proving  it. 

If  our  Government  was  set  up,  as  a  kind  of  militant  inter- 
national eleemosynary  institution,  dedicated  to  an  Utopian 
propaganda  of  sublimated  political  panaceas,  George  Wash- 
ington must  have  known  something  about  it.       s 

If  our  Government  is  an  International  Aid- Society,  then 
Washington  was  a  charter  member,  for  he  presided  when  the 
Constitution  was  made,  and  when  the  Government  was  born. 

Will  you  listen  to  Washington,  the  Father  of  his  country? 

In  his  Farewell  Address,  he  said: 

Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence  (I  conjure  you 
to  believe  me,  fellow-citizens)  the  jealousy  of  a  free  people  ought 
to  he  constantly  awake;  time  and  experience  prove  that  foreign  in- 


54 

fluence  is  one  of  the  most  baneful  foes  of  Republican  Government. 
Excessive  partiality  for  one  foreign  nation,  and  excessive  dislike  for 
another,  cause  those  whom  they  actuate  to  see  danger  only  on  one 
side,  and  serve  to  veil,  and  even  second  the  arts  of  influence  on 
the  other.  Real  patriots,  vsrho  may  resist  the  intrigues  of  the  favor- 
ite, are  liable  to  become  suspected  and  odious;  while  its  tools  and 
dupes  usurp  the  applause  and  confidence  of  the  people  to  surrender 
their  interests. 

The  great  rule  of  conduct  for  us,  in  regard  to  foreign  nations, 
is,  in  extending  our  commercial  relations,  to  have  with  them  as 
little  political  connection  as  possible. 

Europe  has  a  set  of  primary  interests,  which  to  us  have  none, 
or  a  very  remote  relation.  Hence  she  must  be  engaged  in  frequent 
controversies,  the  causes  of  which  are  essentially  foreign  to  our 
concerns. 

Our  detached  and  distant  situation  invites  and  enables  us  to  pur- 
sue a  different  course.  If  we  remain  one  people,  under  an  efficient 
Government,  the  period  is  not  far  off  when  we  may  defy  material 
injury  from  external  annoyance;  when  we  may  take  such  an  atti- 
tude as  will  cause  the  neutrality  we  may  at  any  time  resolve  upon, 
to  be  scrupulously  respected;  when  belligerent  nations,  under  the 
impossibility  of  making  acquisitions  upon  us,  will  not  lightly  hazard 
the  giving  us  provocation;  when  we  may  choose  peace  or  war,  as 
our  interest,  guided  by  justice,  shall  counsel. 

Why  forego  the  advantages  of  such  a  peculiar  situation?  Why 
quit  oui"  oivn  to  stand  upon  foreign  ground?  Why,  by  Inteiiveaving 
'our, destiny  with  that  of  any  part  of  Europe,  entangle  oui*  peace  and 
prosperity  In  the  toUs  of  European  ambition,  rlvalshlp,  interest,  hu- 
mor, or  caprice? 

President  Wilson  is  theoretically  the  successor  of  the  first 
Democratic  President. 

Theoretically,  Mr.  Wilson  is  not  only  the  official  successor 
of  Thomas  Jetierson,  but  is  a  scholar  in  his  school  of  politics. 

While  it  is  true  that  scholars  sometimes  outgrow  their  mas- 
ters, it  is  not  often  that  they  apostatise,  while  still  wearing  the 
garb  of  the  school  and  professing  loyalty  to  the  head-master. 

In  order  that  you  may  judge  for  yourself  whether  the  most 
recent  addresses  of  President  Wilson,  outlining  his  purpose 
to  "pour  out  blood  and  treasure" — not  his  blood  and  not  his 
treasure — in  the  visionaiy  "fruition"  of  America's  purpose 
to  liberate  "mankind,"  I  will  ask  you  to  read  a  portion  of 
President  J^erson's  first  Inaugural. 

The  Hon.  William  L.  Wilson,  who  put  into  successful  op- 
eration the  amendment  to  the  Post  Office  Bill  of  February, 
1893,  requiring  the  Govemment  to  experiment  with  the  free 
delivery  of  country  mails^  says,  in  his  standard  "History  of 
the  National  Democratic  Party,"  that  Mr,  Jefferson's  address 
"^5  tJie  best  exposition  ever  made  of  the  fundcmiental  princi- 
ples of  the  party  whose  leader  he  was^ 

This  Inaugural,  says  Mr.  Wilson,  "has  become  the  creed 


55 

of  our  political  faith,  the  text  of  civil  instruction^  the  touch- 
stone BY  WHICH  TO  TRY  THE  SERVICES  OF  THOSE  WE  TRUST." 

Pray  consider  well  those  words. 

There  never  lived  a  truer,  purer,  braver  patriot,  than  Wil- 
liam L.  Wilson,  of  West  Virginia.  I  knew  him  personally, 
served  with  him,  followed  him  in  the  great  Tariff  fight  of 
the  56th  Congress,  and  respected  him  most  sincerely. 

He  quotes  our  Jeifersonian  creed  as  follows: 

"Equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  men,  of  whatever  state  or  per- 
suasion, religious  or  political;  peace,  commerce,  and  honest  friend- 
ship with  all  nations — ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  WITH  NONE;  the 
support  of  the  State  governments  in  their  rightis,  as  the  most  com- 
petent administration  for  our  domestic  concerns,  and  the  surest 
bulwarks  against  anti-republican  tendencies;  the  preservation  of  the 
general  government  in  its  whole  ^constitutional  vigor,  as  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  our  peace  at  home  and  safety  abroad;  a  jealous  care  of 
the  right  of  election  by  the  people — a  mild  and  safe  corrective  of 
abuses  which  are  lopped  by  the  sword  of  revolution  where  peaceable 
remedies  are  unprovided;  absolute  acquiescence  in  decisions  of  the 
majority,  the  vital  principle  of  republics,  from  which  there  is  no 
appeal  but  to  force,  the  vital  principle  and  immediate  parent  of 
despotism ;  a  well-desciplined  militia,  our  best  reliance  in  peace  AND 
FOR  THE  FIRST  MOMENTS  OF  WAR,  till  regulars  may  relieve 
them;  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military  authority;  econ- 
omy in  the  public  expense,  that  labor  may  be  lightly  burdened;  the 
honest  payment  of  our  debts  and  sacred  preservation  of  the  public 
faith;  encouragement  of  agriculture,  and  commerce  as  its  handmaid; 
the  diffusion  of  information  and  the  arraignment  of  all  abuses  at 
the  bar  of  public  reason;  freedom  of  religion;  freedom  of  the  press; 
freedom  of  person  under  the  protection  of  the  habeas  corpus,  and 
trial  by  juries  impartially  selected — these  principles  from  the  high 
constellation  which  has  gone  before  us,  and  guided  our  footsteps 
through  an  age  of  revolution  and  reformation." 

I  hope  that  it  is  neither  treason  nor  sedition,  to  remind 
"mankind,"  that  Professor  Woodrow  Wilson  was  not  put  at 
the  head  of  the  Government  for  the  purpose  of  voyaging  un- 
charted seas,  in  search  of  Golden  Fleece,  or  for  the  restoration 
of  a  fabled  Golden  Age,  but  was  sworn  in,  to  hehave  himself 
according  to  law. 

This  is  the  oath  he  took: 

"I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  faithfully  execute  the 
office  of  President  of  the  United  States,  and  will,  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  constitution 

OF  THE  UNITED   STATES. 

Now,  the  Constitution  states,  in  so  many  plain  words,  that 
it  was  intended  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union,  and  to  perpet- 
uate the  liberties  of  "ourselves  and  our  posterity." 

In  other  words,  the  Constitution  says  that  its  purpose  is 
to  establish  "a  selfish  and  separate  liberty." 


50 

President  Wilson  is  bound  by  a  solemn  oath  to  take  the 
Constitution  as  he  finds  it. 

When  Patrick  Henry  said,  "Give  me  liberty,  or  give  me 
death!"  what  did  he  mean? 

What  is  the  definition  of  the  word  "liberty"? 

In  the  United  Editors'  Encyclopedia  and  Dictionary,  you 
will  find  that  the  word  means,  "freedom  from  restraint,  free- 
doTYi  of  poioer  of  choice,  as  opposed  to  necessity." 

What  is  conscription? 

Just  the  j^ever'se  of  liberty! 

Therefore,  accdrding  to  the  President  and  Congress,  Pat- 
rick Henry  risked  his  life  in  battling  for  the  exact  opposite 
of  what  has  recently  been  imposed  upon  us,  without  any  au- 
thority from  the  Constitution. 

In  Australia,  the  question  of  conscription  was  referred  by 
the  government  to  the  people;  but  in  the  United  States,  it 
was  assumed  by  those  in  power  that  the  young  men  of  the 
country  were  cowards,  slackers,  and  shirkers;  and  they  were 
cartooned  and  abused  in  the  daily  papers,  before  they  even 
had  a  chance  to  show  their  patriotic  manhood. 

Nobody  can  reasonably  doubt  that,  if  our  country  were  in- 
vaded, every  able-bodied  man  would  instantly  be  eager  for 
service  in  defense  of  our  soil. 

But  to  send  an  army  across  the  ocean,  when  we  have  not 
been  attacked  on  land,  strikes  the  average  man  as  a  wild- 
goose  chase;  and  he  cannot  avoid  the  suspicion,  that  the  pur- 
pose of  it  is  antagonistic  to  our  own  best  interests  and  to  our 
blood-bought  liberties. 

Democracy  constrains  no  man,  outside  the  constitutional 
powers  granted  by  the  people  to  the  government ;  and  compul- 
sion, whether  by  a  Kaiser  or  a  Congress,  is  tyranny,  when 
it  oversteps  the  boundaries  of  the  powers  delegated  to  the 
Government. 

That  man  is  blind  who  cannot  see,  that  t?ie  Spirit  of  Tyr- 
anny is  abroad  in  the  land,  taking  various  forms  of  compul- 
sion, and  forcing  prussianism  upon  us,  at  the  very  time  the 
Government  pretends  to  be  fighting  it. 

What  are  the  remedies? 

The  Constitution  itself  provides  on^,  and  forbids  Congress 
to  ever  abridge  it :  that  method  consists  in  peaceable  assemblies, 
orderly  discussion,  declaratory  resolutions,  and  remonstrant 
petitions  to  the  Government. 

The  other  perfectly  legal  and  adequate  remedy — as  Daniel 


57 

Webster  claimed— was  stated  in  the  famous  Reply  to  Hayne, 
which,  as  some  historians  have  said,  had  the  force  of  a  consti- 
tutional amendment. 

Mr.  Webster  argued,  that  the  Constitution  is  not  a  con- 
tract, and  does  not  form  a  League,  but  is  a  constitution  proper 
and  creates  a  government :  therefore,  the  States  cannot  legally 
nullify  the  laws  of  Congress,  nor  evade  them  by  seceding  from 
the  Union,  hut  must  test  their  Constitutionality— wheTever  the 
case  admits  of  it— 6?/  an  appeal  to  the  Utiited  States  Courts. 

Mr.  Webster,  the  Great  Expounder  of  the  Hamiltonian 
school,  was  himself  the  superb  lawyer  who  frequently  appeared 
in  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  to  combat  the  constitutionality 
of  State  laws  and  acts  of  Congress. 

I  plant  myself  squarely  on  the  Websterian  ground,  of  the 
celebrated  Debate;  and  I  contend  that  Webster's  doctrine, 
which  our  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  has  so  often  sustained,  offers 
to  my  people  —  deserted  by  recreant  office-holders,  and  be- 
trayed by  a  venal  press — a  legal  remedy  for  the  revolutionary 
measures  which  have  been  so  amazingly  sprung  upon  us,  so 
very  soon  after  Mr.  Wilson  was  re-elected  to  the  slogan  of 
"He  kept  us  out  of  war." 

My  countrymen !  if  you  allow  this  conscript  law  to  stand 
uncontested  in  the  courts,  your  posterity  will  have  as  much 
right  to  reproach  your  memory,  for  liberties  pusillanimously 
lost,  as  you  have  to  glorify  the  memories  of  your  ancestors, 

FOR  LIBERTIES  HEROICALLY  WON. 

I  have  said  my  say,  and  I  am  done.  God  guide  you,  my 
people !  Many  and  many  a  time,  in  the  years  gone  by,  I  have 
fought  your  battles,  with  tongue  and  pen,  when  the  clouds 
hu^g  low  overhead,  and  the  wind  from  the  East  blew  hard; 
but  never  have  I  felt  so  deeply  depressed  as  I  now  do,  at  the 
sudden  turn  which  the  Government  has  taken,  since  the  Presi- 
dent's second  inauguration. 

As  Patrick  Henry  said,  "I  have  but  one  lamp  by  which  my 
feet  are  guided,  and  that  is  the  lamp  of  experience." 

All  my  studies  of  government,  all  my  reading  of  history, 
tell  me,  but  too  plainly,  that  such  laws  as  have  been  suddenly 
fastened  on  you,  without  consulting  tou,  lead  inevitably  to 
the  destruction  of  individual  liberty,  and  to  the  establishment 
of  a  military  despotism. 


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filE  HOUSE  OF  HAPSBURGI 

Pi  By  Thos.  E.  Watson  I 

The  Latest  of  Mr.  Watson's  Historical  Works 
States  Cause  of  Present  European  War. 

Shows  the  Origin  of  the  Present  House  of  Hapsburg; 
The  Growth  of  the  Papal  Power  of  Rome. 

John  Huss,  John  Wickliffe,  Martin  Luther,  the  Thirty 
Years  War  and  the  Reformation. 

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THIS  SERIES  OE  F»A1VIPHLETS 

By  Thos.  E.  Watson. 

1  Oath  of  4th  Degree  Knights  of  Columbus   3  The  Inevitable  Grimes  of  Celibacy 

2  Is  there  a  Roman  Catholic  Peril  ?  4  What  Goes  on  in  the  Nunneries  ? 

5  The  Italian  Pope's  Campaign  Against  the  Constitutional  Rights  of 
American  Citizens. 


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THE  MASSACRE 

OF 

ST.  BARTHOLOMEW 

NEW  EDITION 


IF  you  read  the  serial  articles  dealing  with  this 
awful  chapter  of  Roman  Catholic  persecution,  in 
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The  articles  created  a  sensation,  and  the  demands 
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The  Roman 
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Contains  historical  data  sfiowing  ttie  evolu- 
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ceremonies  and  rites. 

It  cites  Roman  Catholic  theological  authori- 
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